Jeff Miller

April 2, 2021

Because Jesus Was Raised

Because Jesus Was Raised...We Live in His Grace.

Jeff Miller

April 2, 2021

Because Jesus Was Raised

Introduction:

Daniel 12:2 - And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

John 5:29 - ...those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.

Witnesses to the Resurrection (1 Cor 15:1-11):

The Church . (1 Cor 15:1-2)
Romans 10:9 - because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Scripture . (1 Cor 15:3-4)
Isaiah 53:10 - Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

Psalm 16:10 (Acts 2) - For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.
Eyewitnesses (1 Cor 15:5-8)
Global Impact . (1 Cor 15:11)

Three Realizations of Those Who Live in His Grace:

I am Unworthy . (1 Cor 15:9)
I am Defined by grace. (1 Cor 15:10a)
I am Powered by grace. (1 Cor 15:10b)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:48-00:52
Open your Bibles with me please to 1 Corinthians 15.
00:54-00:58
While you're turning there, we're going to pray.
00:59-01:02
Our Father in heaven, we bow ourselves before you.
01:04-01:15
And Father, you know usually when we come together there's this, I guess sort of spirit of celebration, but it's something about this night every year.
01:16-01:20
There's just a heaviness over all of us.
01:21-01:36
And maybe it's just as fallen people, but redeemed people, maybe it's just this thought that the God of the universe came here and we mocked Him.
01:37-01:38
We mocked you.
01:39-01:52
That you came here as a man and we violently beat you and publicly executed you and blasphemed your name.
01:53-01:55
There's a heaviness with that.
01:55-02:12
And there's a heaviness that comes with the truth that you knew that was going to happen and you went through with it, because you knew that would be the means by which we would be saved from our own sin.
02:13-02:16
So yes, Father, tonight, this is a heavy night for us.
02:17-03:00
And we do come in here with the sense of, "He came to his own, and his own did not receive him." God. Father, we come in here with this real sense of this is what you did because you love us. So I pray, Father, as we turn to your Word, that you would eliminate distractions, but let our Word, let your Word, Father, bring us to your presence, Father. We praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.
03:02-03:09
1 Corinthians chapter 15, for the next four messages, we're going to be in this chapter.
03:10-03:51
And we're going to be talking about one thing for these four messages, and that one thing is resurrection. But you know, if we're going to talk about resurrection, tonight we have to talk about death. In fact, people have been talking about death a lot lately, haven't they? Oh, the last 13 months or so? That seems that anybody, that's all anybody wants to talk about. It's always in our faces. But you know, death is nothing new. It's still one per person. And the thing that strikes me, especially over these last 13 months and this obsession with the numbers of deaths.
03:52-04:03
The thing that astonishes me is so many people seem consumed by this idea of death, but we're not consumed with the question of what happens to me when I die.
04:05-04:08
I guess we don't really turn to the doctors for that portion, do we?
04:08-04:09
We turn to religion.
04:11-04:14
And depending on what religion you turn to, you're going to get all kinds of answers.
04:15-04:16
What happens when I die?
04:16-04:19
Some religions teach soul sleep.
04:20-04:24
You just kind of go to sleep forever, or maybe not forever, who knows.
04:26-04:29
And some religions teach annihilation.
04:29-04:31
When you're dead, it's over.
04:31-04:35
There is no conscious existence, excuse me, you're just, you're done.
04:37-04:39
And you just completely cease to exist entirely.
04:40-04:50
And some religions teach reincarnation, that you'll come back as something or someone else down the road and you just keep getting cycled through.
04:52-05:07
And some religions teach that when you die, your essence gets absorbed back into the oneness of the universe cosmos or some hippie stuff, I don't know.
05:08-05:14
But the Bible, God's Word, teaches something exclusively.
05:15-05:19
And that is the concept of resurrection.
05:20-05:21
Here's the reality.
05:21-05:34
According to God's Word, every single person in this room or watching this stream, every single person that has ever lived or will ever live, every single person, someday is going to resurrect from the dead.
05:36-05:42
Believers are going to get an eternal body that's going to suffer eternally apart from the presence of God.
05:42-05:49
And believers are going to get an eternal body that is going to enjoy the presence of God in glory forever.
05:50-05:51
It's in the Old Testament, right?
05:52-06:05
Daniel 12.2 says, "Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt." Jesus said the same thing in the New Testament.
06:05-06:08
We talked about it somewhat recently, John chapter five.
06:09-06:15
Jesus said, "Those who have done good "to the resurrection of life, "and those who have done evil "to the resurrection of judgment." It's a big deal.
06:17-06:19
So we're going to get laser focused on this subject.
06:20-06:20
Resurrection.
06:21-06:26
It's not just a doctrine on a page.
06:27-06:38
The one that we believe in, the one on whom this church is founded, Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead and he promised us that we would have our own resurrection.
06:39-06:41
But you know, we're a lot like the Corinthian church.
06:42-06:46
There is so much confusion, you know, about resurrection.
06:46-06:46
Does it happen?
06:47-06:48
I don't think it does happen.
06:48-06:48
How does it happen?
06:49-06:56
There is all this confusion and all these questions, and that's why we have 1 Corinthians 15, the resurrection chapter.
06:56-06:56
It's going to clear it up.
06:56-07:05
So we're going to take a hard look in a series called "Because Jesus Was Raised." And you're like, "Hang on.
07:06-07:14
Already with your title, your message, you're getting a little presumptuous because you're assuming that I believe in the resurrection.
07:16-07:19
What kind of evidence do you have for that?" And I would say, "Fact check this.
07:21-07:25
First Corinthians 15, if you're taking notes, these are the witnesses to the resurrection.
07:26-07:31
Number one, the church is the witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
07:31-07:33
Look at the first couple of verses.
07:33-07:44
It says, "Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and which you stand, and by which you are being saved.
07:44-07:51
If you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain." Stop there.
07:51-07:54
Paul is writing this to believers.
07:55-08:30
obviously some very confused believers because of some outside influence we're gonna talk about that down the road but he was reminding these believers hey hey you built your life on this belief in Jesus Christ resurrecting from the dead and you're saved through that belief and when we talk about resurrection Church you have to understand that believing Jesus literally rose from the dead is not a part of what we believe. It is the very heart of what we believe.
08:30-08:56
Do you understand? It's not a fringe issue. It is the absolute, non-negotiable, essential issue of the gospel. That Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead. Romans 10.9 says, Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
08:56-08:59
Do you notice the condition on being saved there?
08:59-09:02
Believing that he was raised from the dead.
09:03-09:05
Like, well, why do I have to believe that?
09:06-09:09
Can't I just believe like some of the other stuff?
09:10-09:11
Why do I have to believe that?
09:12-09:14
Because it's believing Jesus is who he said he is.
09:15-09:15
That's why.
09:16-09:18
It's trusting his word.
09:18-09:27
And if you can't believe this truth about Jesus, then nothing else Jesus said should matter to you.
09:28-09:34
Because he promised this, and his resurrection guarantees our own resurrection.
09:35-09:44
And the first proof that Paul gives here of the resurrection is that Jesus Christ is alive and transforming people in the church.
09:45-09:46
That's the first witness.
09:47-09:59
that the church, hear me, the church is full of people who claim to have been transformed by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
10:00-10:00
You don't believe me?
10:02-10:13
I'm going to ask you right now, if you would claim that Jesus Christ has transformed you upon your belief in his resurrection, I want you to stand up.
10:14-10:16
If you believe that, I want you to stand up.
10:17-10:18
All right, there you go.
10:18-10:19
There's your witnesses.
10:20-10:20
There are your witnesses.
10:21-10:21
Thank you very much.
10:21-10:22
You may be seated.
10:23-10:24
That's Paul's point here.
10:25-10:29
What are we gonna do with all these people like yourselves that are testifying?
10:29-10:31
I believe that and he changed me.
10:33-10:34
There's your first witness.
10:34-10:35
The second witness is scripture.
10:37-10:38
Look at verses three and four.
10:38-10:45
Paul says, "For I delivered to you as of first importance "what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures.
10:47-10:52
That he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.
10:54-10:56
Notice that phrase that got repeated.
10:56-11:01
Paul says that Jesus' death and His resurrection is according to the Scriptures.
11:01-11:09
And you're like, "Well, what Scriptures are those?" We would be here until Christmas if I was going to go through the Old Testament.
11:09-11:11
I'm just going to give you a couple of examples.
11:12-11:13
It's from Isaiah 53.10.
11:15-11:19
In this one verse you see the prophecy of his death and his resurrection.
11:20-11:22
"Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him.
11:22-11:23
He has put him to grief.
11:23-11:26
When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring.
11:26-11:28
He shall prolong his days.
11:29-11:36
The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand." Another key scripture talking about the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
11:37-11:39
Very important is Psalm 16.10.
11:40-11:47
This is really important because when Peter preached to Pentecost, this was the scripture that he used to prove that the Christ had to rise from the dead.
11:48-11:53
He says, "For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol." That was the grave.
11:54-12:08
He says, "Or let your Holy One see corruption." See, God promised to His Messiah, to just put it in less poetic words, He says, "My Messiah will not rot. His body will not corrupt." Meaning, He will not stay dead.
12:08-12:10
So there's your second witness, the Scriptures.
12:11-12:14
Your third witness to the resurrection, eyewitnesses.
12:15-12:15
Look at verse 5.
12:16-12:28
It says that "He appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve, then He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom were still alive, though some had fallen asleep.
12:29-12:40
Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles, Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me." Stop there. Paul gives a list.
12:41-12:48
He goes, "You want to know some people that have seen the resurrected Christ?" This isn't an exhaustive list, by the way.
12:48-12:52
He doesn't mention the women at the tomb, he doesn't mention the two disciples on the road to Emmaus.
12:52-12:58
Okay, he's like, "I'm going to give you enough witnesses that will keep you busy for a while if you really want to do some investigating.
12:59-13:02
First of all, Cephas. Who's that? That's Peter.
13:02-13:03
That's the Aramaic way of saying Peter.
13:05-13:05
The disciples.
13:06-13:11
Then he talks about Jesus appearing to more than 500 believers.
13:11-13:17
You're like, "Jeff, can you tell me more about that?" "No, I can't because he gives us all the information we have.
13:17-13:23
I don't know where that was, when that was." But Paul encourages fact-checking.
13:23-13:33
He says, "Look, a lot of those people are still alive, and if you want to ask them, go ask them." He mentions James, you're like James the Apostle, right?
13:33-13:35
No, he's probably talking about Jesus' half-brother.
13:36-13:38
Jesus had half-brothers, yeah.
13:38-13:41
Mary and Joseph had other children after Jesus.
13:42-13:48
And they would be Jesus' half-brothers and sisters because they had the same mother but they didn't have the same father.
13:49-13:49
You with me?
13:50-13:51
I can start over.
13:52-14:29
Well Jesus had a half-brother named James and I think that's who he's talking about here because when you go to Galatians chapter 1 you see a connection here with Paul and then he mentions all the Apostles. Then Paul says he appeared to me. We talked about that when we went through Acts. Now on this list James and Paul were kind of unique because they didn't believe in Jesus before he appeared to them. You're like, "What's your point?" My point is this, if Paul was like, "All of Jesus' buddies say he's still alive." Skeptics would say, "Oh yeah, of course all his buddies say he's alive.
14:29-14:30
Maybe they're in on it.
14:30-14:31
Maybe they're making it up.
14:31-14:35
Maybe this is some kind of scam.
14:35-14:50
Maybe something fishy is going on here." And Paul's like, "Okay, what about James and I?" Because you see, we had no motivation to make up something like Jesus resurrecting because we did not believe in him.
14:51-14:54
But He showed up, and He changed us.
14:55-14:58
The last witness to the resurrection, we're just going to...
14:58-14:59
I don't know what else to call this.
14:59-15:00
We're just going to call it global impact.
15:02-15:03
We're going to jump down to verse 11.
15:04-15:05
Look what he says.
15:05-15:25
He goes, "Whether then it was I or they, so we preach, and so you believed." In other words, he's like, "Whether it's I'm preaching or somebody else is preaching, it's It's the same message and you're believing it because it's about the message, excuse me, not the messenger.
15:26-15:26
Right?
15:27-15:28
Like, what do you mean?
15:28-15:29
Here's what I mean.
15:30-15:44
Between places I've been and people that I know and I'm still in contact with all over the world, you realize the same message is being preached globally.
15:45-15:48
that this Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
15:49-15:53
And when this message is preached, it's met with the same results.
15:55-15:56
Lives are transformed.
15:57-16:02
I mean, I can tell you stories about Romania, and Nepal, and Ghana, and Uganda.
16:02-16:11
And in 2019, four of us from this church went to the mountain jungles of Thailand, as far away from civilization as you can get.
16:11-16:12
And do you know who we found there?
16:12-16:20
There were people that were radically transformed from the message of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
16:21-16:23
And you don't have to just take my word for it.
16:23-16:34
We have a lot of people in our church that are involved in missions that you can talk to people that have either been or have connections to the Dominican Republic, India, Cuba, Mexico, Papua New Guinea.
16:34-16:36
And guess what they met?
16:36-16:38
Guess who they met in all these places?
16:40-16:43
that have been radically transformed by the message of the resurrection of Jesus.
16:45-16:48
So those are the witnesses to the resurrection.
16:49-17:01
But you know, almost as amazing as the resurrection itself is the means by which eternal life is granted.
17:02-17:05
And you notice I skipped a couple of verses. We're going to circle back.
17:06-17:07
I want you to look at verse 9.
17:08-17:34
Verse 9, he says, about Jesus appearing to him, commenting on that, he says, "For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God." Paul reminds us here, he says, "I was on my way to persecute the church, and God, Jesus Christ, intercepted me.
17:36-17:41
And it should have been to give me His wrath. Right?
17:42-17:43
But He gave me grace.
17:43-17:44
Look at verse 10.
17:45-17:49
He says, "But by the grace of God, I am what I am.
17:50-17:52
And His grace toward me was not in vain.
17:52-18:10
On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me." Paul says, "His grace toward me wasn't in vain." Meaning God didn't waste His time on me, because I put His grace to use.
18:12-18:13
But it wasn't really me doing the work.
18:14-18:18
It was His grace working in me and through me.
18:19-18:36
So, the first thing we need to get our heads around, as we're talking about resurrection, is the glorious reality that it causes us to live in grace.
18:37-18:39
I just want to talk about grace for a few moments.
18:40-18:40
What is grace?
18:41-18:44
It's one of those church words that we throw around a lot.
18:45-18:51
And if somebody's going to pin you down for a definition of it, you're like, "Oh, let me Google that." What is grace?
18:51-18:56
Well, I guess if you go to a theology textbook, grace would say it is the unmerited favor of God.
18:56-18:57
That's true.
18:57-19:07
I heard a preacher say it this way one time, he said, "Grace is God giving to you what He requires from you." And I really like that.
19:09-19:15
But to me, the best definition of grace that I've ever heard came through this little story.
19:16-19:16
It's an allegory.
19:17-19:21
But to me, it helps us understand grace.
19:22-19:27
But I just want you to imagine, if you would please, that you have a 15-year-old son.
19:28-19:33
And I want you to imagine, we're pretending here, but imagine you have this 15-year-old son and he goes to a party.
19:34-19:39
And at this party, there's another 15-year-old boy who hates your son.
19:40-19:47
And this other boy knew your son was going to show up at this party, and he's had this plan ready for weeks.
19:48-19:53
He's planning when your son shows up, he hates your son so bad he's going to murder him.
19:54-19:55
And that's what happens.
19:55-20:02
Your son shows up at the party and he is literally stabbed in the back, blindsided, murdered.
20:03-20:04
Are you in the story?
20:05-20:19
Because you see, if you as the parent decide you're going to hunt that kid down and you're going to kill him with your bare hands for what he did to your son, that's called vengeance.
20:20-20:33
Or let's say you decide you're going to cooperate with the police and you're going to do everything in your power to make sure he gets arrested, and he does, and he goes to court, and he's tried and convicted, and he's in jail for the rest of his life.
20:33-20:35
That's called justice.
20:37-21:21
Let's say you help the police track that kid down and he ends up in court, and you show up in court and through some inexplicable way you were able to convince the judge to drop all the charges and the judge does and that kid that murdered your son walks out of the courtroom completely free no repercussions that's called mercy but if you take this 15 year old son who murdered, 15 year old kid rather, that murdered your son, if you take this kid into your house and you raise him as if he was your own son, that's called grace.
21:22-22:06
We have a hard time with grace as human beings because there's something in us that says surely there is something that I have to do in order to be right with God, but you can't earn it, you can't work for it, and you can't be good enough to get it, because if you could, it would be really hard to make sense of why Jesus died on that cross. Grace is a gift to be received. Did you receive it? On your outline, here are three realizations of those who live in His grace. These are three statements that are completely understood by people who have embraced the grace of Jesus Christ.
22:07-22:27
And it all comes from verses 9 and 10, letter A, your first realization, "I am unworthy." Do you notice that? Paul said, "For I am the least of the apostles unworthy to be called an apostle." You have to recognize your unworthiness.
22:28-22:31
That you are a sinner by birth and by choice.
22:32-22:35
And you've broken God's law and you're guilty of breaking God's law.
22:37-22:38
But that's the point that people miss.
22:39-22:44
Most people think, okay, yeah, I've done some stuff that, yeah, I shouldn't have.
22:44-22:45
Yeah, I've sinned.
22:46-22:52
But, you know, I'm gonna try to be a good person from now on and I'm gonna try to do good things.
22:53-22:55
But there's a problem with that kind of thinking.
22:56-23:19
You know, getting back to the courtroom, if there was a criminal who was in court clearly guilty of committing a crime, and the judge, he says to the judge, "But your honor, I'm gonna tell you what, your honor, "yes, I am guilty, but I promise your honor, "I'm gonna try to do better from now on." And the judge says, "Well, that's good enough for me, "you can go." That's how some people view God.
23:20-23:21
Now, would that happen in the courtroom?
23:22-23:23
Absolutely not.
23:24-23:36
The judge would say, "Hey, I'm glad you want to improve your life, but the reality is you're still guilty, and that's how we are before a holy God." You have to get there. You have to get there.
23:37-23:41
It's not, "Okay, I'll try Jesus. Okay, I'll try church.
23:42-23:46
Okay, I'll try to do things like Bible way." You don't get it.
23:47-23:54
You have to get to the place where you're like, I am such a mess and I don't deserve anything.
23:56-24:03
And then you come to a service like this and you look at the cross and the lights start to come on a little bit about grace.
24:04-24:04
I'm unworthy.
24:06-24:08
Second realization is this, I'm defined by grace.
24:09-24:17
Once we truly receive God's grace, please hear me 'cause I know, Listen, we all need to hear this.
24:18-24:20
We are defined by His grace.
24:21-24:29
Meaning this, when you are in Jesus Christ, you're not living in the past, in your shame, head down.
24:30-24:36
Yeah, I know I'm forgiven, but I was such a horrible person and we're not called to live that way.
24:38-24:42
Nor are we called to swing the pendulum the other way and live arrogantly.
24:44-24:47
Like Jesus sure is lucky to have me on his team.
24:48-24:54
We recognize that we didn't earn anything and we humbly accept everything that he gives us and wants to do through us.
24:56-25:02
I've shared with you before about serving in the prison ministry and we had a lot of fun in there, didn't we Mark?
25:03-25:04
We had a lot of fun in prison ministry.
25:04-25:07
I know that sounds weird, but Mark will back me up on that.
25:07-25:08
We had a lot of fun in prison ministry.
25:10-25:12
But there were some times that weren't so fun.
25:13-25:37
And that is when Mark and I would show up for Bible study and somebody would come in that I went to high school with and they would look at me and they'd go, "Jeff Miller, what are you doing here?" I'm like, "I'm here to lead Bible study." They're like, "You're here to lead Bible study?" Like, "Yeah." "Why are you doing that?" Like, "Well, I'm a pastor now." "You're a pastor now?" Like, how in the world?
25:37-25:38
'Cause they knew who I was.
25:40-25:42
And what do you say about something like that?
25:42-25:44
I only have one response.
25:45-25:45
It's right here.
25:46-25:49
Exactly what Paul said, and you better embrace this too.
25:49-25:50
Do you see verse 10?
25:50-25:54
He says, "But by the grace of God, I am what I am." It's all I got.
25:55-25:56
How about you?
25:57-25:59
Have you done some things that you're not proud of?
26:01-26:04
Have you had some nasty thoughts that you'd be ashamed?
26:05-26:06
People knew?
26:07-26:08
Do you have a checkered past?
26:09-26:24
Could somebody come to you and say, "How could someone like you think that you're going to serve God in the church and you're gonna go to heaven? How could somebody like you think that? Because I know what a rotten piece of garbage you were.
26:26-26:37
How in the world could you say something like that?" We're just like Paul, we're like, "Look, I know I'm not worthy, but it's by God's grace that I am what I am today.
26:37-26:43
It's not me. I didn't clean my act up. God got a hold of me. And it was His grace.
26:45-26:50
Church, listen. Something, something is going to define you.
26:51-26:53
You're going to allow something to be your identity.
26:55-26:59
And I guess it could be your mistakes. I wouldn't recommend it.
26:59-27:01
It could be your pride. I don't recommend that either.
27:02-27:22
But you could be identified by God's grace to say, "Hey, you know, it's by God's grace I am what I am." The last thing, the last realization of someone who lives in His grace says, "I'm powered by grace." Do you see that at the end of verse 10?
27:24-27:26
He said, "His grace toward me was not in vain.
27:26-27:32
On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them." Meaning the other disciples.
27:32-27:39
He says, "Though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me." Grace is a motivator.
27:39-27:41
It's kind of a paradox when you think about it.
27:43-27:45
Actually there's a couple of paradoxes going on here.
27:46-27:47
Here's the first one.
27:48-27:53
Instead of making me sit back and be lazy, grace moves me to work as hard as I can for Jesus.
27:54-27:55
That's a paradox.
27:55-28:04
Because I would think grace, God giving us everything, would make me tempted to just flop down on the beanbag and say, "Hey, God's got this.
28:04-28:05
He don't need me.
28:05-28:06
He does everything.
28:06-28:14
He's got the power, so I'll just coast through life." But somehow, grace motivates me to work as hard as I can.
28:15-28:21
The second paradox you saw in the text, I work as hard as I can, but it's not really me doing the work, it's God.
28:22-29:25
And you're like, "Well, how does that work?" I don't know how that works, but you don't need to figure out how it works. Just get to work Serve God out of love and appreciation and his power doing what he's called and equipped you to do See, this is what it means to live by grace and It's for this grace that Jesus went to the cross Then ask the worship team to come up and if our elders would come We're going to gather around the Lord's table and as they're getting ready, I want you whether you're streaming this or Sitting here with us today Jump back up to verse 3 because tonight We're going to remember that he died for our sins Now first Corinthians 15, like I said that focuses all about the resurrection But there is no resurrection unless Jesus first dies.
29:26-29:28
So we're going to save the party for Sunday.
29:29-29:30
Tonight we look to the cross.
29:31-29:38
And again, looking at verse 3 in 1 Corinthians 15, I just want you to see that Paul explains Jesus' death on the cross with three words.
29:39-29:40
Do you see them?
29:40-29:52
He says, "Christ died for our sins." It was my rebellion that put Jesus Christ on that cross.
29:54-29:59
It was my selfishness that put Jesus Christ on that cross.
30:01-30:06
It was my guilt that put Jesus Christ on that cross.
30:07-30:08
And it was yours.
30:10-30:16
But while Jesus Christ was on the cross, God treated Him as if He lived your life.
30:17-30:25
So that God can treat us as if we live Jesus' life.

Small Group Discussion
Read 1 Cor 15:1-11

What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
How do you know when it’s really God’s grace working in you, and not just your own talents / strength / personality / etc (1 Cor 15:10)?
How would you explain to a new believer what it means to “find your identity in Christ” (1 Cor 15:10)?

Breakout
Pray for one another. Pray for those who heard the Gospel message at HBC and surrounding churches.

Jeff Miller

March 28, 2021

Knowing Jesus

Knowing Jesus - Knowing His Example

Jeff Miller

March 28, 2021

Knowing Jesus

  
  Introduction:

  The Humility Assessment (John 13:1-20):
Do I show love for people despite my own Problems ? (John 13:1)
  
Am I Secure in my identity? (John 13:3)
  
Do I serve Indiscriminately ? (John 13:5)
  
Am I willing to do the dirty Work ? (John 13:13-20)

  
  ➡ 3 Reasons to Do the Dirty Jobs (John 13:16-20):
You aren't Better than Jesus. (John 13:16)
  
There's Blessing in doing the dirty jobs.  (John 13:17)
  
Serving wins the Hearts of others. (John 13:18-20)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:55-00:58
Open up your Bibles with me please to John chapter 13.
01:01-01:13
And as we turn to God's Word, we have a huge shift happening here, because John chapters 1 through 12 is about how to get eternal life.
01:14-01:22
But now we're entering into John chapters 13 through 17, and these chapters talk about how to develop that life.
01:23-01:27
In other words, the first part of John 1-12 is how to become a disciple of Jesus.
01:28-01:35
And now, we are going to be sitting around the table with Jesus as He tells us what it means to be a disciple.
01:36-01:38
How that life develops.
01:39-01:43
So look at John 13, we're going to pick up in verse 1.
01:43-01:56
It says, "Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come to to depart out of the world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world.
01:56-01:58
He loved them to the end.
02:00-02:45
During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray Him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going back to God, from supper. He laid aside his outer garments and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.
02:46-03:05
Let's stop here for a second. Now this obviously is not something that we are familiar with in practice, but this was a common thing in this culture. Washing feet. Because it was a culture of dirty roads and sandals and lots of walking.
03:07-03:18
And by every Jewish front door was a pitcher of water. And it was actually the of the lowest slave, okay?
03:18-03:21
You didn't necessarily want to sign up for this job.
03:23-03:26
Lowest guy in the pecking order got that.
03:27-03:31
But interestingly, this job was usually done before supper.
03:32-03:37
But the Bible is very clear here that this happened during supper.
03:40-03:41
Well, what's the point of that?
03:41-03:45
Well, that's showing us that this is something that is very intentional that Jesus is doing.
03:48-03:50
So we see he dressed down.
03:50-04:01
Jesus took basically the attire of a slave to wash his disciples' nasty, filthy feet.
04:04-04:08
If you're not feeling uncomfortable enough about this already, can we put that picture up here?
04:10-04:11
It would have looked something like this.
04:13-04:26
I just want you to imagine for a second, if you can kind of put yourself in the scene, imagine how the disciples felt when they saw Jesus do this.
04:30-04:34
Stripped down, getting down in front of them.
04:37-04:54
I mean I'm sure there's a lot of people sitting in the room or watching the stream at home uncomfortable even seeing this picture. True or false? True. Some of us are uncomfortable looking at it like, "That's..." But just imagine being one of them.
04:58-05:07
And here comes the Messiah of Israel, picking up your foot I'm washing you.
05:09-05:14
Well it seems from the text that there was silence until Peter speaks up.
05:14-05:14
Right?
05:15-05:15
Look at verse 6.
05:17-06:03
It says, "He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, 'Lord, do you wash my feet?' Jesus answered him, "What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand." Peter said to Him, "You shall never wash my feet." Jesus answered him, "If I do not wash you, you have no share with me." Now, not surprising, Peter speaks up.
06:03-06:05
He is usually the one that does, right?
06:05-06:08
And he actually gives like the strongest negative possible.
06:09-06:16
Peter is basically saying, "You absolutely will never, ever, ever do something like that to me, Jesus.
06:17-06:30
That is not going to happen." And before we criticize Peter here, you know, the truth is, we think like he thinks.
06:33-06:39
Authority means the person at the top has everyone serve him.
06:39-06:40
That's what authority means, right?
06:40-06:42
I mean, isn't that how authority works?
06:42-06:51
I mean, you know, Jesus is God, so he's obviously at the top, so we serve him.
06:53-06:56
That's just not how it works, right?
06:57-06:59
Jesus shouldn't be serving me.
06:59-07:26
Peter's like, "No, this isn't going to happen. Absolutely this is not going to happen." Because isn't that how authority works? The one at the top gets served, right? In the home, in the school, in the military, in politics. The person that has the most servants is obviously the one that is at the top. Isn't that how it works? Isn't that how it works? Jesus says No.
07:28-07:29
That's not how it works in the Kingdom of God.
07:33-07:42
Jesus was saying, "Peter, you have to humble yourself to allow me to clean you." And you have to see that Jesus jumped to the spiritual application.
07:43-07:47
I want you to look at this statement because this is so important.
07:47-08:09
And then in verse 8, Jesus said, "If I do not wash you, you have no share with me." Jesus said to Peter, "If you won't allow me to clean you, then you aren't really with me." And you have to understand how important this concept is.
08:09-08:19
Jesus was saying, "Peter, listen, if you're not going to accept me washing your feet, You are never going to accept me laying down my life and dying for you.
08:22-08:26
And you're never going to accept me when I ascend to the Father and my spirit comes.
08:26-08:31
You're never going to accept me being the provider for every single thing that you need.
08:31-08:32
You're never going to accept that, Peter.
08:33-08:43
If you can't accept this, and get it in your head that you need me for everything, and you've got to let me provide everything for you.
08:43-08:48
If you can't get this, then you don't have any part of me.
08:52-08:56
If you're familiar with the Bible at all, you probably can guess what happened next.
08:57-08:57
Look at verse 9.
08:59-09:06
"Simon Peter said to Him, 'Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.'" Peter totally went to the other extreme, right?
09:09-09:10
And look, give him credit.
09:10-09:16
Peter was saying, "Jesus, whatever it takes to be with You, Whatever it takes to be with you, sign me up.
09:18-09:19
I need cleansed.
09:20-09:20
Do it all.
09:22-09:40
And it's kind of funny when you think about it, because here comes Jesus to watch Peter speak, and at first, He's like, "Never!" And then like three seconds later, He's like, "Everything!" And I'm like, "Wow, Peter, would you please just let Jesus do what He wants?
09:41-10:11
please, could you let him be God? But you have to see that verse 10 says Jesus said to him, "The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean." He says, "And you," look at this, he says, "And you are clean." Not every one of you.
10:13-10:16
For He knew who was to betray Him.
10:16-10:23
That was why He said, "Not all of you are clean." Okay, now it's time for the theology lesson.
10:25-10:33
Jesus, once again, as He does throughout His entire ministry, He uses the physical to illustrate the spiritual.
10:35-10:37
I'm going to give you a little cultural context here.
10:37-10:41
In this context, everybody took their bath in the morning.
10:43-10:45
All right, you bathe once in the morning.
10:46-10:47
So you're clean.
10:48-10:57
But as you're walking through the dusty roads and sandals and all of that, you would have to get your feet washed several times a day.
11:01-11:06
And Jesus was pointing out here, catch this, this is the theology lesson here.
11:06-11:26
Jesus says, "Once you're clean, you don't need a new bath just because your feet get dirty." I mean, let's be honest, wouldn't that be a little weird if you lived in those days and you showed up at your friend's house and you're like, "Yeah, can I use your shower real quick?" Why?
11:26-11:33
"Because my feet are dirty and I would just feel better about using your shower." Jesus is like, "Obviously that's silly.
11:34-11:35
You don't need a new bath.
11:35-11:37
you just gonna get your feet scrubbed.
11:39-11:42
You're clean, but your feet are a little dirty.
11:43-11:45
And here's the spiritual application.
11:45-11:46
Here's the theology lesson.
11:48-11:51
Listen, 'cause a lot of people don't understand this.
11:51-11:59
Once you are cleansed by Jesus Christ, you do not need another bath every time you sin.
12:01-12:09
A lot of people think, Okay, I believed in Jesus, I received Jesus, I'm a follower of, I believe in him, but I messed up.
12:10-12:11
I need to be forgiven again.
12:11-12:14
I need to come to Jesus and ask for his forgiveness again.
12:15-12:21
I need to be born again again, or I'm out of the family, I'm back in the family.
12:22-12:31
Some people look at their salvation as being this, such a fragile little transaction between me and God.
12:31-12:36
And when I sin and mess up, I've got to receive salvation again.
12:36-12:38
And that is completely untrue.
12:40-12:45
Once you truly come to know Jesus Christ, once you're truly saved, nothing can take that away.
12:46-12:47
Nothing can change that.
12:47-12:48
We've talked about that.
12:48-12:49
We've seen it all through John.
12:51-12:57
You don't need to be forgiven again every time you sin.
13:00-13:07
But, occasionally, we still need Jesus to get the dust off our feet.
13:09-13:10
Meaning what?
13:10-13:13
Meaning this, positionally in Christ we're clean.
13:14-13:25
But practically, as we walk through this dirty world, on a regular basis we still have to go to God to get our feet washed.
13:26-13:37
meaning daily confessing the dirt on our feet of bad attitudes and anger and lust and crass words and whatever.
13:39-13:44
But I think we can all readily admit that, "Yeah, I believe in Jesus and yes, I'm forgiven.
13:46-13:48
Sometimes I need to get my feet washed a little bit." You know what I'm saying?
13:50-13:56
I need to go back to God to...
13:56-14:31
clean up my feet." So the disciples were clean, Jesus points out, not every one of them. Just make a mental note of this, Jesus calls out Judas here. Now understand that at this moment Judas knew, and Jesus knew, and as we are reading this the way John writes this, we the readers know what's going on, but But understand that none of the disciples at this point knew that Judas was going to do what he did.
14:31-14:58
So imagine these words of Jesus when he's like, "Not every one of you are clean." It's like, "Who's he talking about?" So verse 12 says, "When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, "Do you understand what I have done to you?
15:00-15:06
You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am.
15:09-15:15
If I then, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.
15:17-15:34
For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you." So after Jesus takes His place back at the table, sits down and He says, "Okay, did you learn anything?
15:37-15:46
You understand what I'm trying to show you?" And the lesson of the moment, and for us the lesson of the day, is humility.
15:49-15:58
If the Lord will do this for you, you should do this for each other.
16:00-16:02
And church, this is where it has to start.
16:03-16:05
It has to start with humility.
16:07-16:17
As Jay said in the video, humility is the most important characteristic that God is looking for in His people.
16:19-16:22
You need to think of humility like the foundation of a house.
16:22-16:26
You can't build until there's a foundation.
16:27-16:30
Or anything you build will not last.
16:32-16:33
And it's the same with humility, church.
16:34-16:36
Nothing happens without humility.
16:38-16:38
Nothing.
16:39-16:43
Coming to Jesus Christ in the first place, what does that require?
16:43-16:44
Humility.
16:45-16:53
Recognizing that I'm a fallen and lost person and I'm desperately in need of the love of God because I bring nothing to the table spiritually.
16:53-16:54
That requires humility.
16:57-16:58
To embrace Christ.
16:58-16:59
Growing in Christ.
16:59-17:00
That requires humility.
17:01-17:03
That's saying, "Look, I don't have it all figured out daily.
17:03-17:07
I go to Him for wisdom and discernment and to get my feet washed.
17:07-17:10
And I need Him every hour.
17:12-17:14
That doesn't happen without humility.
17:14-17:20
Serving Christ in whatever capacity you serve Christ in this church requires humility.
17:22-17:26
That it's not about me and my talents and my creativity and my whatever.
17:27-17:30
It's about God's Holy Spirit alive and at work in me.
17:31-17:39
of everything in the Christian life is built on the foundation of humility.
17:42-18:10
Like, all right, well what is humility? It's just simply this. It's absence of self. It's not thinking less of yourself. It's thinking of yourself less. It's that you're not absorbed with the usual sinful, selfish, self-centered, self-interest, promotion of self, what's in it for me?
18:10-18:15
You're so outward thinking, like, you know, what does God want me to do?
18:15-18:16
How can I serve others?
18:17-18:20
You're not thinking about what's in it for me.
18:22-18:29
But I got to tell you, when it comes to humility, very clearly in God's Word, it is a command repeated over and over and over and over.
18:30-18:32
Humble yourself.
18:33-18:34
Humble yourself.
18:34-18:44
When God commands you to humble yourself, He's saying forsake your pride, forsake your selfishness, forsake your self-sufficiency, and humble yourself.
18:44-18:45
It's a command.
18:49-18:51
But there is a huge problem with humility.
18:53-18:53
That is this.
18:55-19:10
just as everyone thinks they're a good driver, just as everyone thinks they're a great singer, no one greater than me, at least how I think.
19:13-19:14
Aaron will tell you that is definitely not true.
19:17-19:23
Just as everyone thinks they're a great driver or a great singer, everyone really thinks they're humble.
19:24-19:24
Truly.
19:26-19:33
If I went around the room and just said, hey, stand up, tell everybody who you are, are you a proud person or are you a humble person?
19:33-19:37
I guarantee you almost everyone in this room would say, I like to think that I'm a humble person.
19:40-19:40
I'm with you.
19:42-19:44
That's how I would respond too.
19:48-19:51
We think that we are humble.
19:55-20:16
But we get to a passage like this, and we see the words of Jesus, and we read of the actions of Jesus, and we're like, "I'm not as humble as I thought I was." Because you see, there's a lot of things that Jesus did that we cannot imitate, right?
20:17-20:19
Like feeding of the 5,000.
20:19-20:21
I mean, how epic would that be?
20:21-20:23
If I'm like, "You all just stay here.
20:24-20:38
You know, I got my son's lunch and I'm just gonna feed you all with it, that would be awesome to imitate, but I can't do that." Or calming the storm, like my dogs won't go outside when it rains.
20:38-20:44
So how epic would it be if I could just step on the porch and be like, "Shh," and it stops storming?
20:44-20:47
'Cause Jesus could do that, but I can't do that.
20:49-20:50
or turning water into wine.
20:51-20:58
I would be invited to everybody's house many times a week if I could do that.
21:00-21:01
And I can't do that.
21:02-21:05
So obviously there are a lot of things about Jesus that I cannot imitate.
21:06-21:14
But here is something, not just we can imitate it, here's something that we are commanded to imitate.
21:17-21:21
The humility of Jesus that moves us to lovingly serve people.
21:23-21:25
And you're like, well, how am I doing there?
21:26-21:27
Well, that's on your outline.
21:29-21:31
We're gonna take a little humility assessment.
21:32-21:33
You ready for this?
21:33-21:34
Because it might sting a bit.
21:35-21:36
You ready for this?
21:37-21:41
You ready for an honest examination of yourself in light of the word of God?
21:43-21:46
Or did you come for somebody to blow smoke?
21:47-21:49
All right, well this might sting a little bit.
21:50-21:51
Listen, I don't care.
21:52-21:53
I'm going to tell you why I don't care.
21:54-21:55
I had to study this all week.
21:55-21:56
Do you know how many times it stung me?
21:58-21:59
Feel my pain, people!
22:02-22:04
Those of you sitting at home watching this stream, feel my pain.
22:08-22:26
But conformity into the image of Christ, sometimes it stings a little bit when we've got to knock off some selfishness. The humility assessment, you can ask yourself these questions in light of this passage. Number one, am I humble like Jesus?
22:26-22:38
Number one, do I show love for people despite my own problems? Do I show love for people despite my own problems? Bible says that Jesus loved them to the end.
22:39-22:45
You know I used to think that that meant like until his dying breath, until the The last minute, he loved them, and that's really not what that means.
22:45-22:46
It means to perfection.
22:47-22:51
He loved them totally, thoroughly, 100%.
22:53-22:54
That's what that means.
22:54-23:01
It means that everything that Jesus did for the disciples and everything that Jesus is doing in your life comes from love.
23:02-23:07
Jesus will never do anything in your life motivated by spite or anger or bitterness.
23:07-23:11
Everything Jesus wants to do in your life is out of love.
23:12-23:13
That's what this means.
23:13-23:19
In verse one, it says, Jesus knew, Jesus knew what?
23:21-23:24
Says he knew, look at your text, verse one, his hour had come.
23:26-23:29
And this sets the stage here 'cause you need to think about this.
23:31-23:37
Jesus was about to suffer the wrath of God for the sin of the world.
23:38-23:39
Wrap your head around that.
23:39-23:45
Jesus knew that we're talking literally at this point hours away.
23:46-24:12
Jesus knew, "I'm about to be separated from my Father and bear the sin of the world." And most people at this point would have been so consumed with themselves and their problems be thinking about other people, true or false.
24:14-24:27
I'll tell you what, if it was me sitting at that table, knowing what was coming, I would have said to the disciples, "Don't bother me now.
24:28-24:29
Don't you know what I'm about to do?
24:30-24:32
I don't care about your dirty feet.
24:32-24:35
You go wash your own filthy paws.
24:35-24:39
I got bigger problems than your nasty feet.
24:42-24:50
But instead of being distracted by what was ahead, it's incredible.
24:50-24:53
Jesus was concerned with the needs of his disciples.
24:56-25:02
It's like, yeah, I'm about to bear the sin of the world, but nobody washed their feet.
25:02-25:04
I'll get that taken care of right now.
25:05-25:07
This is our God!
25:09-25:10
So how are you doing there?
25:12-25:13
Needs pop up.
25:15-25:18
You see opportunity to serve others in the church.
25:21-25:30
How quickly are you tempted to say, "Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, but I got my own problems." You know, the church has these spring cleaning days that are coming.
25:31-25:32
What's that called?
25:32-25:32
Project Blitz?
25:35-25:43
Like, "Yeah, I know the church is doing spring cleaning and finishing up some things and just some housekeeping, maintenance kind of stuff.
25:43-25:46
I know the church is doing that, but look, I got a mess of my own at home.
25:47-25:48
I mean, why should I be going down to the church?
25:49-25:59
I got my own problems." Or someone in your small group needs help with something and you're like, "I have bigger problems than she does.
25:59-26:02
Why would I take my time to go help her?
26:03-26:04
Why would I do that?
26:06-26:08
Because I got bigger problems than she does.
26:09-26:13
And if that's your mindset, I wanna say you're not thinking like Jesus.
26:15-26:23
Because that certainly wasn't his attitude, about to bear the sin of the world, but absolutely refused to pass up a chance to show love.
26:25-26:30
Knowing his example, the humility assessment, how are we doing so far?
26:33-26:41
You're like, "One question in, and maybe I'm not as humble as I thought I was." Number two, am I secure in my identity?
26:43-26:45
Am I secure in my identity?
26:47-26:50
Verse three tells us that the Father gave Jesus all things.
26:52-26:55
He inherits everything because of who He is and what He's done.
26:56-26:59
Jesus knew that He came from God, He was returning to God.
26:59-27:00
Here's the point.
27:00-27:01
Here's the point of verse three.
27:04-27:06
Jesus knew exactly who he was.
27:11-27:32
See, Jesus was never worried about what people thought about him. Have you noticed that? And when you get here, Jesus was not worried that such an act of stooping down and washing the feet of his disciples, Jesus wasn't worried that doing that might make people think negatively about him.
27:33-27:34
Never crossed his mind.
27:34-27:42
Like you and I, we might think, well, if I stooped down to do that, they might think, oh, I thought he was kind of somebody important.
27:42-27:47
I thought he was, you know, kind of above that, but he's doing like the worst slave labor.
27:50-28:00
You realize the text basically says here, to paraphrase it, Jesus knew who he was, so he did the work of a slave.
28:02-28:03
That's what it says.
28:05-28:08
Jesus knew who he was, so he did the work of a slave.
28:10-28:15
And I just need to tell you, church, if you're not there and we're all a work in progress, aren't we?
28:15-28:15
Amen.
28:17-28:17
Are we a work in progress?
28:18-28:18
Amen.
28:18-28:19
Don't leave me up here.
28:20-28:22
I'm not the only one that's a work in progress.
28:24-28:26
I know who I am in Jesus Christ.
28:26-28:28
He established my worth.
28:28-28:33
I know what God has called me to do, and I'm not afraid of what people might say or think.
28:34-28:35
That's security of identity.
28:37-28:39
Have you ever been around an insecure person?
28:40-28:42
Have you ever been around somebody that's insecure?
28:45-28:48
Aaron and I know somebody from our time in Chicago.
28:48-28:50
I'm not gonna mention their name in case they're watching this stream.
28:52-28:54
But Aaron and I know somebody.
28:56-29:06
Anytime you're in any kind of a group setting, he was always looking around to see how everybody else was reacting, because he wouldn't react until he knew how everybody else was reacting, so he knew how to react.
29:07-29:08
He'd look around, oh, people were clapping?
29:09-29:09
(claps)
29:09-29:10
(laughs)
29:10-29:11
Oh, he'd look around, people were shaking their head?
29:12-29:13
(moans)
29:15-29:24
He'd look around, and he was constantly thinking this thought, how do I think people want me to react?
29:25-29:25
Right?
29:27-29:29
What am I expected to do here?
29:29-29:33
And there was just a complete lack of confidence in just being himself.
29:36-29:37
That's how insecure people are.
29:40-29:44
And something else about insecure people is they're unable to lower themselves.
29:47-29:55
Like if I said, hey, we really need somebody to help clean the bathrooms at the church, who's willing to do that?
29:56-29:58
And you think in the back of your mind, well, I can't do that.
29:59-30:05
Like what if, like I invited some people from work to church, what if they came in and saw me cleaning the bathroom?
30:05-30:06
Like what would they think?
30:08-30:12
Like, you know, I'm Dr. So-and-so and I'm scrubbing the toilets, like what would they think about me?
30:15-30:24
Or, hey, this year at VBS, we want you to wear the gorilla suit and jump around and help entertain the kids.
30:25-30:26
You're like, I can't do that.
30:26-30:32
'Cause I invited some of my kids from my neighborhood to VBS, what if their parents come and see me in the monkey suit?
30:33-30:35
And what are they gonna think about me?
30:35-30:37
And I can't do that.
30:39-30:41
And I would just tell you, well, this wasn't Jesus attitude.
30:42-30:45
Jesus was like, hey, God defines my identity.
30:46-30:48
Regardless of whatever you think, Jesus said, I know who I am.
30:50-30:57
So for me to stoop down and serve hasn't even crossed my mind what people might think of me.
30:59-31:01
Am I securing my identity?
31:01-31:02
How we doing?
31:02-31:05
Number three, do I serve indiscriminately?
31:07-31:08
Do I serve indiscriminately?
31:10-31:11
You're like, how do you spell that?
31:12-31:17
Just write down without showing favoritism or impartially.
31:20-31:21
Do you serve indiscriminately?
31:21-31:22
Here's what I mean.
31:22-31:29
It would have been profound enough if this story says that Jesus was washing the feet of all super Christians.
31:30-31:32
Everybody sitting around the table, they all had their acts together.
31:33-31:36
They were perfect, holy, absolutely.
31:36-31:41
Their conduct, their speech, their attitudes were always above reproach, no matter where they were, what was going on.
31:42-31:46
These were the greatest, most pure, perfect people in the world.
31:47-31:51
If Jesus was washing the feet of such a group, I would still be pretty impressed.
31:53-31:59
But the fact that it was people like us really makes it much more impressive.
32:01-32:08
Because not only did we see Peter being a little slow in the uptake, but did you notice the other disciple that was singled out?
32:09-32:11
Three times another disciple was mentioned.
32:13-32:16
Verse two, verse 11, verse 18, shout him out if you know his name.
32:18-32:19
Judas, do you notice that?
32:20-32:22
Like, wait, wait, wait a second, hang on.
32:22-32:28
Why in the world in this passage about Jesus washing feet, why does Judas come up three times?
32:30-32:36
I think it's because Jesus' love shines brighter when you have Judas as a backdrop.
32:38-32:40
To know that Jesus even washed Judas.
32:43-32:44
Think about that.
32:45-32:49
Jesus knew exactly what Judas was going to do.
32:50-32:57
Pretending to be BFFs, selling him out by identifying him with a kiss.
32:57-32:58
Jesus knew all that was coming.
33:00-33:05
If that was me, when I bent down to wash Judas' feet, I would have at least ripped a toe off.
33:06-33:07
At least.
33:10-33:10
Not Jesus.
33:11-33:13
Everything Jesus did was from this platform of love.
33:15-33:17
I know, I know deep down you hate me.
33:17-33:18
I know deep down you're pretending.
33:21-33:25
I'm going to wash you just as much as any of these other guys.
33:26-33:34
All of them, whether they were ignorant or hateful or fearful or prideful, Jesus indiscriminately, lovingly served them all, and that's not easy to do.
33:36-33:41
It is so easy to serve people that we like, people on our team, people we think like.
33:41-33:44
It is so hard to serve otherwise.
33:45-33:50
I remember years back serving in community meals in downtown Butler.
33:51-34:00
And you think when we open the doors to serve a community meal, the people that are coming in are all going to be like, "Thank you.
34:00-34:02
I appreciate this.
34:02-34:03
I'm so hungry.
34:04-34:13
I don't have anything." And you think in your mind, "I'm going to serve them and I'm going to meet a real need in the name of Jesus." That's sort of how you think the community meal's gonna go.
34:13-34:16
And you know what usually it looked like a lot of times?
34:17-34:22
Is people standing in line on their iPhone complaining about the menu.
34:23-34:26
Like, "Ugh, like spaghetti again?
34:28-34:30
"Like, are we complaining about the free spaghetti?
34:31-34:39
"Like, I'm sorry, we're only serving people "that are needy and appreciative." But we certainly didn't.
34:42-34:45
Take that attitude because that's not the attitude of Jesus.
34:47-34:54
You can serve the people you like, but can you serve the person who annoys you to no end?
34:56-34:58
Can you serve the person that you know has criticized you?
35:01-35:04
Can you serve the person that you know hates you?
35:07-35:53
here's the truth church most people are lousy ungrateful self-centered evil little goblins especially me you're like you know what pastor Jeff I really only want to serve nice people good luck with that because that wasn't Jesus attitude Jesus says hey you know Peter you don't understand but I'll serve you and I know Jesus was thinking Judas you hate me you want me dead. You're gonna sell me out for a handful of coins, but I'm gonna serve you. Do you serve indiscriminately? And number four, am I willing to do the dirty work? Am I willing to do the dirty work?
35:56-36:26
Jesus clearly stated the point of all of this, right? He says this is an example, do what I do you're like even stuff that I don't prefer to do well if the Lord of the universe will wash filthy feet you should wash each other's filthy feet you still not sold on that is there somebody sitting here like yeah I'm not sold I I can start over.
36:28-36:38
Or why don't we just look at the next couple of verses because these are three reasons to do the dirty jobs, okay?
36:40-36:41
Not sure I wanna do this.
36:41-36:44
I'm gonna give you three reasons to do the dirty jobs.
36:45-36:47
Letter A, write this one down.
36:49-36:51
You aren't better than Jesus.
36:52-36:58
This is going to be a shock to some people here this morning, but you're not better than Jesus Christ.
36:58-37:17
Look at verse 16, Jesus said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him." This is a verse that every single one of us should get tattooed on our forearms, or at least highlight it in your Bible, okay?
37:21-37:24
Because when you approach something and you're like, well, that job's beneath me.
37:24-37:27
You want me to run the garbage up to the dumpster?
37:28-37:31
You want me to clean up the mess that the baby made in the nursery?
37:32-37:33
That job's beneath me.
37:35-37:38
And my response is, oh, oh, you're better than Jesus.
37:39-37:40
Didn't get the memo.
37:41-37:43
Because Jesus never thought any job was beneath him.
37:44-37:49
And he demonstrated that by doing the absolute nastiest, grossest job of the day.
37:50-37:57
Jesus is like, "I'll do that." And we have to remind ourselves, church, we are not better than Jesus.
37:58-38:03
If Jesus is willing to do this, who are we to turn down any job?
38:05-38:06
Three reasons to do the dirty jobs, letter B.
38:08-38:10
Write this down, there's blessing in doing the dirty jobs.
38:12-38:13
Look at verse 17.
38:15-38:22
Jesus said, "If you know these things, "blessed are you if you do them." If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.
38:22-38:24
Get that one tattooed on your other arm.
38:25-38:28
In other words, don't just idealize the teaching.
38:29-38:46
Don't just hold this teaching as a mental principle that we come to church, we go to Bible study, we're like, yes, service is a grand old idea, and I really think that that's a wonderful thing that we should all definitely really ought to think about and embrace and applaud Jesus for.
38:47-38:50
and do you see Jesus' clear application?
38:50-38:51
Like do it!
38:53-38:54
If you know it, do it!
38:57-38:59
Jesus said there's blessing.
39:00-39:03
You're like, okay, help me connect the dots here.
39:03-39:10
What possible blessing could I get from doing the nasty lowest, most menial job?
39:10-39:13
What's the blessing that could possibly come from that?
39:14-39:17
How about being like Jesus?
39:20-39:27
How about God's promise to exalt the one who humbles himself?
39:27-39:28
How about that one?
39:29-39:33
How about we do it and find out?
39:36-39:37
'Cause here's a blessing.
39:37-39:38
Last thing today.
39:41-39:43
Serving wins the hearts of others.
39:46-39:49
Jesus said, "I am not speaking of all of you.
39:49-39:50
I know whom I have chosen.
39:52-39:54
But the Scripture will be fulfilled.
39:55-40:01
He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me." That's from Psalm 41.9.
40:02-40:09
That figure of speech, lifting your heel, It's about deceptively, aggressively kicking somebody.
40:11-40:12
We would say backstabbing.
40:13-40:13
That's how we would say.
40:15-40:22
I am telling you this now before it takes place, that when it does take place, you may believe that I am He.
40:23-40:27
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me.
40:28-40:31
And whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.
40:33-40:35
Serving wins the hearts of others.
40:36-40:43
Because I totally believe that this event changed the disciples in more ways than getting clean feet.
40:45-40:48
The disciples saw who Jesus was in a whole new way.
40:49-40:52
Because he served them in the most radical way.
40:55-41:02
and they willingly obeyed because he's sacrificially loved.
41:04-41:07
And you're like, well, what does this have to do with me?
41:08-41:10
Verse 16, Jesus made it very clear.
41:10-41:11
He goes, I'm sending you.
41:13-41:15
Do you get the connection here?
41:16-41:18
Jesus says, God sent me.
41:19-41:21
Now I'm sending you.
41:24-41:28
And Jesus says in this last verse, hey, I'm sending you out.
41:28-41:32
He said, if they receive you, they receive me.
41:32-41:35
And if they receive me, they receive my father.
41:37-41:40
And it's a reminder, church, that you are sent to win people.
41:42-41:43
Like, well, how do I do that?
41:43-41:45
Well, Jesus gives us the example to follow.
41:47-41:53
When you love people through humble service, you win their hearts.
41:54-41:55
Let's pray.
41:56-42:13
Father in heaven, I don't know Father, this passage to me is almost more staggering than some of the big miracles like feeding the 5,000 or healing the lame.
42:16-42:19
This passage just seems almost more amazing to me.
42:20-42:25
that the God of the universe would serve His people in such a way.
42:28-42:39
Even reading it and studying it and preaching it, there's still a part of me that's just like, "What?" But Jesus made it so clear that this is an example.
42:40-42:54
And I just pray, Father, for myself, and I pray for my brothers and sisters here, And I pray for my brothers and sisters who are watching this stream, that you would give us the faith to obey the command to humble ourselves.
42:56-43:01
That we'd stop thinking so much of ourselves, or so highly of ourselves.
43:03-43:06
But to Father, we would find our identities in Jesus Christ.
43:07-43:09
We would find our joy in imitating Him.
43:11-43:15
We find the blessing of being a servant.
43:18-43:30
Thank You, Father, that You could have just given us a dissertation on humility, but instead, You showed us.
43:33-43:35
Praise You in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
43:36-43:37
Amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read John 13:1-20

What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
How did you do on the assessment? Where do you personally struggle in serving people lovingly and humbly?
Define humility. Why is humility the most important characteristic God is looking for in people?
How does being secure in your identity help you humbly serve others (John 13:3)?
Explain Jesus' spiritual application of foot washing from v10. What was He referring to in talking about “bathing” and “foot washing”? What does this mean to us as Christians?

Breakout
Pray for one another.

Jeff Miller

March 21, 2021

Knowing Jesus

Knowing Jesus - Knowing His Authority

Jeff Miller

March 21, 2021

Knowing Jesus

  
  Introduction:

  Four Things Jesus Taught That You Absolutely Have to Get Right (John 12:44-50):
He is the Only way to God. (John 12:44-45)

He Changes you. (John 12:46)
Ephesians 4:18 - They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.
His Word will Judge you. (John 12:47-48)
Ephesians 8:11 - Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil.
He's giving a Command . (John 12:49-50)
- Divine Appeal
- Practical Appeal
- Fear Appeal
- Authority Appeal

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:00-00:58
John chapter 12, we're going to be picking up in verse 44, and I'd like you to just bow your heads with me Please and we're going to pray The Lord would open our hearts to receive what he has to say today father. We believe that the Bible is your word We believe that it transforms lives Father let us be faithful in our study and proclamation Application father let your spirit be at work to bring radical change to our lives through your word today We pray in Jesus name and all of God's people said amen John chapter 12 verse 44 we're gonna start we're going through a series Called knowing about Jesus. Actually, we're going through a series called knowing Jesus because that's what we're trying to do Move from knowing about Jesus to having a relationship with him Knowing him because that's what the Bible calls us to this is eternal life knowing Jesus Christ.
00:58-01:04
Verse 44 says, "And Jesus cried out and said..." Well, hang on, hang on, hang on.
01:04-01:14
We're going to stop there for a second, because we saw in verse 36, if you've been with us through this series, verse 36 says that Jesus hid Himself.
01:15-01:18
He made His last public declaration, and then He went and hid Himself.
01:19-01:20
Right? Remember that?
01:21-01:23
So you're like, "Well, what's going on here?
01:24-01:26
Did Jesus come out of His hiding spot?
01:26-01:39
And just one more thing, actually, these verses, these sayings of Jesus that are coming here are really a summary of everything that Jesus taught to this point.
01:40-01:46
In other words, John isn't writing a chronological biography of everything that happened to Jesus.
01:47-01:57
John is writing, "Here's who Jesus is, and here's why you need to believe in Him." And you see chapters 1-12 cover Jesus' public ministry.
01:58-02:07
And John here is wrapping that up, because once we get to chapter 13-17, that's sort of a behind-the-scenes with the disciples.
02:07-02:22
So this passage that we're looking at today, you have to understand this, that this passage that we're looking at is John compiling Jesus' key public teachings and putting them as one last appeal.
02:23-02:24
Does that make sense?
02:24-02:25
Here's how I think of it.
02:26-02:27
This will help you make sense of it.
02:27-02:31
Do you remember when bands would put out "best of" albums?
02:31-02:32
Do you remember that?
02:32-02:35
Back when music was good, some of you old enough to remember that?
02:35-02:42
You know, like "Best of Van Halen" or "Best of Ronnie Millsap" or whoever you like.
02:43-02:45
Well, I hear some grumbling.
02:46-02:49
Look, whoever you like, you get the concept, right?
02:49-03:26
right? The bands would put out a best of, like, well, all the volume of material we put out, we're taking the best pieces and giving you like a concentrated dose of it on this album, right? That's sort of what John's doing here. We've had 12 chapters of Jesus and interactions and teachings and John here kind of wrapping this up, says, I'm going to give you a little, a best of the teachings of Jesus right here, live at Budokan. So you're You're going to see in this passage, it's the same themes that we've been reading and preaching for the last, how long have we been in this series now?
03:26-03:27
Like a year and a half?
03:27-03:36
It's the same themes like believing, like being sent by the Father, like light and darkness, like judgment, eternal life.
03:37-03:49
And here John's saying, "Let me boil it down for you, the highlights of Jesus' teaching on your outline." Here's the heading, "Four Things Jesus Taught That You Absolutely Have to Get Right." I can't think of any other way to say it.
03:49-03:58
But with everything that we've said and studied and taught and examined from the life of Jesus, you're like, okay, Jeff, that's a lot.
03:59-04:01
Can you just give me the short version?
04:02-04:03
Well, John has done that for us.
04:03-04:08
Here's four things that Jesus taught that you absolutely have to get right.
04:08-04:11
And we might have differing views on some things and that's okay.
04:12-04:16
But I'm saying these things that John points out here, there's no wiggle room.
04:16-04:19
These things are eternally important.
04:20-04:29
And John wants to make sure before we launch into the next section of Jesus' life, he wants to make sure that you get this stuff right, because your eternity depends on this, right?
04:30-04:34
So number one, jot this down, four things Jesus taught you absolutely have to get right.
04:35-04:36
He's the only way to God.
04:36-04:38
He is the only way to God.
04:38-04:40
Look at verses 44 and 45.
04:40-04:47
Jesus cried out and said, "Whoever believes in me, "Believes not in me, but in him who sent me.
04:48-04:54
"And whoever sees me, sees him who sent me." You know something that really fascinates me?
04:54-04:55
Birds.
04:55-04:57
Birds, what are you laughing at?
04:57-04:58
Am I alone here?
04:59-04:59
Anybody else?
05:00-05:01
Anybody?
05:01-05:03
Oh, you guys are like shy about it?
05:03-05:04
I'm not shy about it.
05:05-05:07
I love birds, okay?
05:07-05:10
I could get like a giant bird tattooed on my arm.
05:10-05:11
That's how much I love birds.
05:12-05:16
Well, do you know every year billions of birds migrate?
05:16-05:17
Did you know that?
05:18-05:19
How do they know how to do that?
05:19-05:31
I mean, I get lost going to Zillianopolis, but you have these birds that will fly halfway across the world and go exactly where they need to go without getting lost.
05:32-05:33
How do they do that?
05:33-05:36
Well, you know, I was reading about this a couple of weeks ago.
05:36-05:38
Do you know how birds do that?
05:38-05:40
Many ways, they use Earth's landmarks.
05:40-05:47
They use rivers and mountains as landmarks, but they also use landmarks not on the earth, like the sun and the stars.
05:47-05:51
And they found the birds are able to use polarized light, ultraviolet light.
05:51-05:56
Birds can even use air pressure as a means of navigation.
05:56-06:03
And they use low frequency sounds that we can't hear, but low frequency sounds that are made by the sea and the wind.
06:03-06:08
They use all of these things as a GPS.
06:08-06:10
But this absolutely blew my mind.
06:10-06:14
They found that birds actually use the Earth's magnetic field in navigating.
06:15-06:16
You know how they do that?
06:16-06:24
They found that birds have small amounts of magnetic crystals in their heads.
06:25-06:29
That's basically, according to scientists, a built-in compass.
06:30-06:36
And birds use that, and a combination of all these things, to migrate every year.
06:37-06:44
You're like, "Why are you telling me this?" I already explained to you that I like birds, but there's a reason I'm sharing this with you, and it's just simply this.
06:46-06:48
Design demands a designer.
06:49-07:02
You will never convince me that that bird evolved over millions or billions of years, all of these mechanisms, to have a more perfect GPS than anything that we have on our phones or in our cars.
07:03-07:05
You will never convince me that that happened by accident.
07:06-07:19
If you were walking through the woods and you saw a rock laying on the ground, you could make up a story about how that rock got there, about volcanoes erupting and the lava cooling and an earthquake and wind and rain.
07:19-07:23
You could make up a conceivable story about how that rock got there.
07:23-07:35
But if you were walking through the woods and you saw a watch laying on the ground, you couldn't make up a story about how that watch got there that didn't ultimately trace back to somebody had to create the watch.
07:35-07:36
You with me?
07:37-07:41
Every cell in your body is infinitely more intricate than a watch.
07:41-07:45
Yet there are people that would have you believe that we are cosmic accidents.
07:46-07:55
I mean, I could, if you're not into birds, I could tell you about the human eye and the millions of parts of the eye that has to be working in order for your eye to see it all.
07:55-08:08
I could tell you about the mechanism of blood clotting that is absolutely astounding when you think, why doesn't the blood clot inside my body, which would instantly kill me, Why doesn't it clot until it's exposed and receives oxygen?
08:09-08:11
I could talk to you about your immune system.
08:11-08:15
I could talk to you about all of these processes, but ain't nobody got time for that.
08:15-08:19
I just want to say, all of this design demands a designer.
08:20-08:21
There has to be a creator.
08:22-08:32
And when we look at all of this intricacy in design, it naturally leads us to think, we know this creator that's up there somewhere, what's he like?
08:32-08:33
What's she like?
08:34-08:34
What is it like?
08:34-08:35
What are they like?
08:36-08:42
And then we get to the words of Jesus and he says, "Whoever sees me, sees him who sent me." You want to know what God's like?
08:43-08:46
This creator that made all this stuff, do you want to know what he's like?
08:47-08:52
Jesus said, "Take a look at him." Now when he said, "Take a look," that's a bad paraphrase actually.
08:52-09:00
That word "sees" in the Greek is better translated "study." Jesus said, "Just take a really close look at me.
09:00-09:05
Study me, observe me, look hard at me.
09:05-09:07
Do you wanna know what God's like?
09:08-09:15
I'm here to show you exactly what he's like because seeing Jesus is seeing God and dealing with Jesus is dealing with God.
09:16-09:17
Allah is not God.
09:18-09:19
Shiva is not God.
09:20-09:27
Mother nature is not God." And some people say, "Well, you know, man, I'm just really, I'm like really spiritual.
09:28-09:30
Like when you go to church, no, I don't go to church.
09:30-09:32
You read the Bible, no, I don't read the Bible.
09:32-09:39
But I gotta tell you, man, I'm just really, really, I'm just like a spiritual person, you know, in my heart of hearts, down in my heart of hearts.
09:39-09:41
I'm just a spiritual person.
09:41-09:42
You ever heard somebody say that?
09:43-09:45
I'm just really spiritual, not without Jesus you are.
09:46-09:48
Because you can't reject the son and have the father.
09:49-09:52
Because Jesus made it abundantly clear that they are a package deal.
09:53-09:57
You don't come to God any other way except Jesus Christ.
09:58-09:59
No one knows God apart from Jesus.
10:00-10:05
And John wanted to make sure to circle back to that concept to say, you know something that Jesus consistently taught?
10:06-10:09
He is the only way to God.
10:10-10:13
But secondly, John this time, number two, he changes you.
10:14-10:18
Something else about Jesus Christ that you absolutely have to get right, he changes you.
10:19-10:20
Look at verse 46.
10:20-10:37
He says, "I've come into the world as light "Whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness." You're like, "Man, I think I've heard this sermon before." You probably have, because we've been going through this series, especially in chapter eight, chapter nine, chapter 12.
10:37-10:39
Jesus has been talking about light and darkness.
10:40-10:42
Darkness is our natural state.
10:42-10:55
Like Ephesians 4 says, "Speaking of man in our natural state, "they are darkened in their understanding, "alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart.
10:56-11:02
And you see, Jesus is the light, and he turns the light on to show the way things really are.
11:03-11:10
I can't remember a time in history when there has been just so much blatant deception put right in front of us.
11:10-11:18
Whether you wanna talk about politics or whether you wanna talk about the COVID pandemic, there is so much deception, it's darkness.
11:18-11:21
and there are people stumbling around in it.
11:22-11:24
And we get to watch it live on TV.
11:24-11:27
And if it wasn't so tragic, it would almost be funny.
11:28-11:41
Then with all of the issues that we're facing in our culture, all the hatred, with all the deception, sex trafficking, politicians blatantly groping and smelling children on camera.
11:42-11:43
And what are we after?
11:44-11:46
What's our culture targeting?
11:46-11:48
Pepe Le Pew and Speedy Gonzales.
11:49-11:51
I mean, can't you see how idiotic that is?
11:52-11:53
That we have real problems?
11:54-11:55
And this is what we're going at?
11:55-11:55
Why?
11:56-12:01
Every time I turn on the news, which I try to do less and less, we're just like, "Why?
12:01-12:07
"What are you thinking?" And the answer is you're not thinking because you're just stumbling around in the dark.
12:08-12:12
Exactly what Jesus was talking about all through this.
12:12-12:14
Come into the light, get out of the dark.
12:14-12:15
You don't know where you're going.
12:16-12:17
You don't know what you're doing.
12:18-12:20
Jesus shines the light to show us reality for what it really is.
12:21-12:26
John reminds us here, look, the evidence of truly coming to Jesus Christ isn't becoming a church member.
12:27-12:33
The evidence of coming to Jesus Christ isn't, well, you know, okay, I'm gonna try to do good, I'm gonna try to cuss less from now on.
12:34-12:38
The evidence of coming to Jesus Christ, you want evidence, you wanna know how you know?
12:38-12:41
Here's the evidence that you truly know Jesus Christ.
12:41-12:43
It's this, He changes you.
12:43-12:45
He changes you.
12:46-12:49
I'm not deceived anymore, I see things how God sees them.
12:49-12:51
I see people as God sees them.
12:51-12:54
I see what's happening in the world the way God sees them.
12:54-12:56
I see myself as God sees me.
12:57-13:00
His wisdom and His Spirit light the way for me.
13:01-13:03
He changes you, and you're like, well, how big of a change is it?
13:04-13:06
It's like night and day, literally.
13:07-13:10
It's night and day, it's light from darkness.
13:11-13:15
It's the difference between midnight and noon on the beach.
13:16-13:20
That's the difference when you come into the light of Jesus Christ.
13:20-13:27
If the gospel is true, receiving Jesus means that your sin and shame are taken away from you.
13:27-13:35
If the gospel is true, it means you are born again as a child of God, into his family, and nothing can ever change that.
13:36-14:08
If the gospel is true, then God's Holy Spirit lives within you. And you have His fruit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. These are the attributes of God that are being manifested in you and through you as He's alive in you. And while you used to be stumbling around in the dark, when you come to know Jesus Christ, the lights come on. And if you haven't experienced radical life change, then you don't know Jesus Christ.
14:09-14:13
Because when the God of the universe shows up, you're going to change.
14:13-14:14
You can't stay the same.
14:15-14:17
And that's what John is reminding us here.
14:18-14:19
He goes, "You know something else?
14:20-14:27
Jesus was pretty consistent about teaching that when you come to Him, you don't stay in the darkness anymore because you are a different person.
14:28-14:32
You're coming into His light." Four things Jesus taught that you absolutely have to get right.
14:32-14:35
Number three, His Word will judge you.
14:36-14:38
Look at verses 47 and 48.
14:38-14:44
It says, "If anyone hears My words and does not keep them, I do not judge him.
14:44-14:48
For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.
14:48-14:52
The one who rejects Me and does not receive My words has a judge.
14:52-14:58
The word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day." Here's something you absolutely have to know.
14:59-15:04
you stand and will stand condemned before God if you reject Jesus Christ.
15:05-17:24
Well, hang on a second, hang on. Verse 47, Jesus very clearly said, "I do not judge." But you're making it sound like Jesus is coming to judge. So which is it? Is Jesus the judge or not? And the answer is no. And yes, because the first time Jesus Christ came, He came to save. But the next time Jesus Christ comes, it will be to judge. A few years ago I was at a Pittsburgh Penguins game and we were playing the Flyers. Yeah, so you can imagine how surly some of the people in the stands were, especially the man who sat right in front of me that used some very colorful language that I wouldn't use in a sermon. Can I just put it that way, do you know what I'm saying? I mean, I don't like the Flyers. I've made that publicly clear. I do not like the Philadelphia Flyers. This guy, it sounded like he had a personal vendetta against every player on the Flyers team. The way he was yelling and the kinds of things he was yelling. It was pretty obnoxious the language he was using. I'm trying to tell us, I'm trying to tell a story here in a church-appropriate way, but so he's using this colorful language and this really jacked dude sitting in another section comes up to him. And let's just say this really jacked dude explained the inappropriateness of the particular verbiage of said man, and this jacked dude explained the course of action he would like this man to take, because then he explained what might happen if he had to return to this section. And I'm thinking, you know, this jacked dude, he kind of reminds me of Jesus, because the first time he came was to present a clear view of what the problem was, and a solution to the problem, but the next time back isn't going to be pretty. And that's exactly like Jesus Christ. God is so gracious. He's so gracious in the fact that judgment doesn't happen to us the moment we don't believe or the first time we sin, isn't God so gracious to not judge us on the spot like we deserve?
17:25-17:33
The first time you have a lustful thought or make an angry comment like, "Poof, vaporized hell forever," that's what we deserve.
17:33-17:36
But Jesus says, "No, no, no, I didn't come to judge.
17:37-17:43
I came to save." You know, Ecclesiastes 8:11 says this.
17:43-17:46
I want you to really absorb this verse and think about it.
17:47-18:06
It says, "Because the sentence against an evil deed "is not executed speedily, "the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil." Now, this is certainly true from a human level, but you're going to see there's a principle here that's also true when it comes to man's interaction with God.
18:06-18:07
Let me explain.
18:07-18:21
What Solomon is pointing out here is just imagine If somebody in our culture murders someone, and that same day they committed murder, they are tried, found guilty, and executed all in the same day.
18:22-18:27
You think that would have an effect on potential murderers if they saw that on TV?
18:27-18:31
This guy lost his mind and committed murder at 9 a.m.
18:31-18:33
and by noon we were watching him executed.
18:34-18:46
Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way because there's arrests and there's imprisonment and there's hearings and there's appeals, there's more hearings, and it's this long drawn out process.
18:47-18:54
And Solomon's point is the delay makes potential criminals think, yeah, it's really not that bad.
18:54-19:02
I mean, that guy got arrested and over time you just sort of forget about what happened to that guy.
19:02-19:09
And because the judgment isn't executed on the spot, you think you have time to get away with it yourself.
19:10-19:11
Like, where are you going with this?
19:12-19:14
See, the problem is people take advantage of God's patience.
19:15-19:22
That because God doesn't send us to hell instantly when we sin, we start to think, you know what, maybe people don't really go to hell.
19:22-19:23
Maybe there is no hell.
19:23-19:25
Maybe I'll get away with it.
19:25-19:37
Maybe, maybe, listen, God delaying judgment is meant to give people a chance to repent, not get judgment out of my mind.
19:38-19:41
God's like, look, the only reason I'm waiting is I'm giving more people time.
19:42-19:45
But Jesus reminds us here that judgment comes eventually.
19:46-19:48
Even if it doesn't come immediately, it will come.
19:49-19:50
You're like, well, who does judgment come for?
19:50-19:51
Who?
19:51-19:52
Who gets judged?
19:53-19:54
Well, look at verse 48.
19:55-20:03
Jesus said, "The one who rejects me "and does not receive my words." Now that word rejects, when we hear rejects, we think of some like violent reaction.
20:03-20:05
Do you know what that word rejects?
20:05-21:07
literally means? It literally means render null and void. You don't have to start a hate campaign against Jesus to reject Jesus. You don't have to go on CNN and mock Jesus to fall into the category of rejecting Jesus. Do you know what you have to do to reject Jesus? The answer is nothing. Just consider Him nothing. Jesus has zero impact on my life. Jesus is a non-factor. That's exactly he's saying here. That's what it means to reject him. And I'm going to tell you, rejecting the Son is blaspheming the Father. Like, well, how is it such an emotional thing? How did it turn into blasphemy, rejecting Jesus? Well, let's put it in earthly terms. Let's say hypothetically, if I could sacrifice my Son to save the world, well, first of all, I wouldn't do it. If saving all you meant sacrificing my son, you're all toast. You are loved, but you are toast.
21:08-21:38
But let's just say hypothetically, we're going to pretend for a second. We're going to pretend that my son comes to me, Cade comes to me and he says, "Dad, I love you. And Dad, I love those people. So I am willing to die for them." And I say, "Okay, Cade, I will let you die so that they might be saved." And he goes through with it. And I come to to you and I say, "You know, my son died "so that you could be saved." And you say to me, "Your son doesn't mean anything to me.
21:39-21:42
"Your son means nothing to me." How do you think I'm gonna react to that?
21:43-21:47
You're like, "Probably worse than the jacked guy "at the penguin game." And you would be right.
21:48-21:50
I'd be like, "Seriously, my son doesn't mean anything to you?
21:50-21:51
"Do you know what he did?
21:52-21:53
"Do you know what he did for you?
21:54-22:00
"Because he loves you?" And you're just like, "He doesn't mean anything to me." You better rethink that.
22:01-22:10
You better rethink that real quick, because you're going to have to deal with a father much bigger and more vicious than this father if you reject his son.
22:11-22:13
Rejecting Jesus results in judgment.
22:13-22:14
How are we judged?
22:14-22:18
Well, Jesus points out the final judge is the word that we have not received.
22:18-22:23
The words of Jesus that we know, the words of Jesus that we ignored.
22:24-22:31
In other words, Jesus pointed out, again, John reminds us of Jesus' consistent teaching that people who are condemned are self-condemned.
22:32-22:32
Did you see that?
22:33-22:45
Jesus said, "The word that I have spoken," verse 48, "The word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day." If you go to court because you violated the law, you understand the law testifies against you.
22:45-22:51
The law says, "This is illegal," and you did that illegal thing, you have no defense.
22:51-23:00
You're standing in court saying, "Yeah, that's what the law says, and I'm guilty of breaking it." And it's the same with your judgment before God if you don't receive Jesus Christ.
23:00-23:15
That someday the story's going to play out something like this, that you're standing before God and he says, "I see here that you ignored my gospel, the call to come to Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sin and eternal life." And your response is, "I did.
23:16-23:33
I did ignore your gospel, you're right." And God's going to say, "And you heard a sermon on March 21st from John chapter 12 verses 44 through 50 from that preacher that looks like a goat." And you're going to say, "I distinctly remember that one." And God's going to say, "Well, then you have no defense.
23:33-23:35
You're condemned by God's Word.
23:36-23:38
And you can be forgiven of any sin.
23:38-23:42
Any sin can be forgiven because of Jesus Christ.
23:42-23:44
But there is one sin.
23:44-23:51
There is exactly one sin that cannot and will not ever be forgiven, and that's rejecting Jesus Christ.
23:52-23:53
There's no forgiveness for that.
23:53-23:57
God doesn't have a plan B. God's not in heaven going, "Oh, they don't want my son.
23:58-24:08
Let me see if I can come up with something else that they might want instead." If you reject Jesus, you're condemned already on death row awaiting eternal execution.
24:08-24:09
His word will judge you.
24:10-24:12
Okay, here's the last track on our "Best Of" album.
24:13-24:17
about Jesus teaching, things that Jesus taught, you absolutely have to get right.
24:17-24:19
Number four, write this down, he's giving a command.
24:20-24:21
He's giving a command.
24:22-24:24
Look at verses 49 and 50.
24:24-24:36
Jesus said, "For I have not spoken on my own authority, "but the Father who sent me "has himself given me a commandment, "what to say and what to speak, "and I know that his commandment is eternal life.
24:36-24:42
"What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me." Here's the authority piece, right?
24:42-24:43
knowing his authority.
24:44-24:49
The most crucial issue that anyone will ever face is who's in charge of your life.
24:49-25:02
So believing in Jesus Christ all the way, wholeheart, dying to yourself, all that stuff we talked about a couple of weeks ago, I need to remind you that it's not a suggestion, it's a command.
25:02-25:03
The gospel is a command.
25:04-25:06
So often we kind of sugarcoat it, don't we?
25:06-25:15
Like, you know, please invite Jesus into your heart, or I'd like to make a suggestion to you, I'd like to share Jesus with you.
25:15-25:18
And we just sort of water it down a bit.
25:18-25:22
But the gospel isn't a suggestion, it's a command.
25:22-25:24
God commands you to believe.
25:25-25:27
God now commands all men everywhere to repent.
25:28-25:36
And Jesus here, John reminds us, Jesus repeatedly pointed out that the gospel doesn't have a human source.
25:36-25:40
In other words, Jesus was like, Look, this isn't stuff that I'm just like making up.
25:41-25:47
This is stuff that my father told me in heaven, and I came to earth to communicate the message to you.
25:48-25:50
I'm relaying a message from heaven.
25:50-25:52
Oh, and what does God in heaven say?
25:52-25:54
He's commanding you to believe in me.
25:54-25:56
That's those are his words.
25:56-25:57
The gospel is a command.
25:58-25:59
Does that seem harsh to you?
26:00-26:02
It's not really harsh when you know what's at stake.
26:02-26:07
I mean, if you think about it, it's no more harsh than a mother commanding her son not to play on the street.
26:08-26:12
It's no more harsh than a doctor commanding his patient to take a life-saving medicine.
26:13-26:17
So the command, it's not a harsh restriction, it's eternal life.
26:17-26:20
Knowing Jesus Christ is eternal life.
26:20-26:21
And God commands it.
26:21-26:22
So what do we have here?
26:23-26:36
Really, in this compilation, as John sums up the public teaching of ministry, it's kind of interesting how he's giving one last appeal to the gospel, but he's giving four angles.
26:36-26:39
I love that because it kind of hits everybody, doesn't it?
26:40-26:42
He's giving four angles, four appeals.
26:43-26:44
Think about it.
26:44-26:46
The first one is the divine appeal.
26:46-26:48
Like, would you like to know who the Creator is?
26:49-26:50
Then look closely at Jesus Christ.
26:50-26:51
That's the divine appeal.
26:52-26:53
Then he takes us to the practical appeal.
26:54-26:55
Like, hey, is your life a mess?
26:56-27:00
Are you living in a dark place right now?
27:00-27:04
Come to the light because when you come to Jesus, the lights are on, man.
27:04-27:05
He changes you.
27:05-27:06
That's the practical appeal.
27:07-27:08
Then he gives the fear appeal.
27:09-27:10
Hey, have you thought about eternity?
27:11-27:14
Because rejecting Jesus Christ will condemn you before God.
27:15-27:15
That's the fear appeal.
27:16-27:17
And then he gives the authority appeal.
27:18-27:19
Like, hey, pal, this isn't a suggestion.
27:20-27:22
The King of the universe commands this.
27:22-27:24
You need to know Jesus Christ.
27:24-27:25
Let's pray.
27:25-27:28
Father in heaven, we thank you.
27:29-27:40
I guess just the beauty of your word, that sometimes we can get so caught up in a lot There have been a lot of details and people that we've met and interactions and teachings and rejection.
27:41-27:46
And there have been so many things happen in this first section of John.
27:46-27:48
And I just thank you just for the beauty of your word, God.
27:48-27:49
You just kind of summed it up for us.
27:50-27:54
Right here, everything we need to know about Jesus teaching.
27:54-27:57
But Father, you haven't called us to just know about it.
27:57-27:58
You've called us to know it.
27:59-28:04
You haven't called us to just have an intellectual grasp, but to make this a very part of our lives.
28:05-28:17
So Father, I pray, especially for those who maybe at this point haven't received Jesus Christ, I pray that one of these appeals is something that you use to open their heart.
28:17-28:24
One of these appeals is something that gets attention so that people can come to know the love that you demonstrated through your Son.
28:24-28:30
And it is in the name of that Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, that we pray, amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read John 12:44-50

What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
Why did Jesus repeatedly emphasize that He did not speak on His own initiative, but only spoke what the Father commanded (John 12:49-50)? What was He getting at by saying this?
How does Jesus being the light change you, specifically (John 12:46)?
We often speak of “sharing Jesus” or “inviting people to be saved”, but rarely do we think or speak of the Gospel as a command (John 12:49-50). Why do you think that is? How is the Gospel a command?
This passage gave 4 appeals: the Divine Appeal, the Practical Appeal, the Fear Appeal, and the Authority Appeal. Which one gets your attention the most? Which one brought you to Christ? Which one(s) do you think the church overuses? Under-uses?

Breakout
Pray for one another.

Jeff Miller

March 14, 2021

Knowing Jesus

Knowing Jesus - Knowing His Fulfillment

Jeff Miller

March 14, 2021

Knowing Jesus

  
  Introduction:

  3 Reasons You Have to Receive Jesus Today (John 12:36-43):
Because you may not be able to  Tomorrow . (John 12:37,40)
   
     Why Would God Harden a Person's Heart?
  
      God gives us what we want
Because it is merciful

  
    Because Healing is available right now. (John 12:40)
  
Because you are building your spiritual Reputation right now. (John 12:42-43)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:55-00:58
Open up your Bibles with me please to John 12.
01:02-01:05
John 12, verse 36.
01:07-01:11
We're continuing our series on knowing about Jesus.
01:12-01:15
Actually it's knowing Jesus, and that's why we're going through John.
01:16-01:20
Jesus said that eternal life is knowing Him.
01:22-01:27
And too many people sitting in churches know about Jesus, but they don't know Jesus.
01:29-01:30
That's why we're going through this gospel.
01:31-01:32
Look at verse 36.
01:35-01:41
This is actually where we left off last week, so if you'll indulge me, we're going to do just a tiny bit of overlap.
01:42-01:48
Jesus concluded His teaching to the people who were standing in His face and basically just rejecting Him.
01:48-01:51
Remember we talked about that last week?
01:51-02:00
They were like, "We already have all the answers." And Jesus pointed out they were ignorant of their true condition and they had no sense of urgency.
02:00-02:02
And this is how that passage closed.
02:02-02:17
Jesus said, "While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light." When Jesus had said these things, He departed and hid Himself from them.
02:19-02:24
though He had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in Him.
02:26-02:41
So that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled, "Lord, who has believed what He heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" Therefore, they could not believe.
02:42-03:18
For again, Isaiah said, "He has blinded their eyes harden their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them." Stop there for a second. This passage right here, this is a divine commentary on unbelief. Because we've been going through John since chapter 1, verse And really, chapters 5 through 12, it's just rejection, rejection, rejection, rejection.
03:18-03:23
For the most part, there were some people who received Christ, but for the most part, it was just rejection.
03:24-03:37
And here, we have under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, John saying, "Here's what was going on." This was actually prophesied by Isaiah 700 years earlier.
03:37-03:40
And you notice there are two cross-reference verses here.
03:40-03:46
The first one is verse 38, that comes from Isaiah 53.1.
03:47-03:55
And if you go to Isaiah 53.1, what you have there is the prophet Isaiah was surprised by the blindness and deafness of people.
03:56-03:57
Isaiah would say, "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
03:58-04:04
You hear the message of God and you see His hand at work and you still don't believe?
04:04-04:10
Like what the heck is going on with you?" The second cross-reference is from verse 40.
04:11-04:13
That comes from Isaiah 6.10.
04:15-04:17
And a lot of us are familiar with that passage.
04:17-04:22
In Isaiah 6, Isaiah sees the glory of God in the temple.
04:24-04:40
And Isaiah was commissioned to go to Israel, but when God sent him, God gave Isaiah a warning like, "Oh, by the way." says, "I've blind and hardened the people who refuse me, and they're never going to be healed.
04:41-04:51
They're never going to be saved." So why did John, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, cross-reference these verses here?
04:51-04:52
What's the point?
04:52-04:53
Here's the point.
04:56-05:11
All these people in chapters 5-12 who shockingly rejected Jesus Christ, God blinded and hardened their hearts.
05:13-05:17
They now cannot believe.
05:19-05:22
And you're like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on, hang on, hang on a second.
05:23-05:31
Jeff, it sounds like what you're saying is it's sort of God's fault that these people don't believe.
05:33-05:34
Yeah.
05:36-05:39
Look, it's what the passage says, right?
05:39-05:49
I don't make up the message, I just broadcast the message, and if you look at the message, it clearly says that God prevents some people from believing.
05:49-05:52
You're like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa.
05:53-05:54
How can that be?
05:54-05:57
I thought that God wanted people saved.
05:57-05:59
I thought God loved saving people.
06:00-06:15
Why would, if God wants people saved, why would He blind and harden some people so that they can't be saved?" Look, there's a mystery in salvation.
06:18-06:23
How God calls and man responds.
06:26-06:29
And you're like, "Well, how does that all work?" And I don't know.
06:30-06:31
I don't know how that works.
06:32-06:35
Because He is God and I am not.
06:35-06:40
And that means it's okay if there are some things about God that I don't understand.
06:41-06:46
I have as much chance of fully understanding God as a fruit fly does of fully understanding an iPhone.
06:47-06:48
It's not going to happen.
06:50-06:51
Okay?
06:52-06:56
And church, we have to be okay with that, but I do have to say this.
06:57-07:01
There are many Christians who simply boil it down to this.
07:03-07:10
God chooses some people to save, and He chooses some people who are not going to be saved.
07:12-07:14
That's how some Christians boil it down.
07:15-07:17
And get it on the record, I do not believe that.
07:18-07:20
I do not believe that's how it works.
07:20-07:34
I believe it is so much more complicated and intricate and purposeful than just simply God in heaven going, "You, not you, not you, not you, you, you, you, not..." I don't believe that.
07:36-08:00
When I was training in Chicago, I was with a group of pastors who were talking about just some interactions they've had with their sons, and the one pastor said to me, "Jeff, It must be hard for you to not be able to have a conversation with your son." And I said, "Well, you know how I look at it.
08:01-08:04
I'll have all of heaven to talk to him.
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I'll have all of eternity to catch up with him." And the one pastor just kind of sneered at me.
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He goes, "If he's elect." I jammed my elbow into his eye.
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I did not, but by show of hands, how many are you wishing that that's how the story ended?
08:31-08:31
Okay.
08:34-08:36
I had a moment of divine restraint.
08:39-08:43
But if you're still not up to speed here, let me break that down for you.
08:43-09:01
This man's theology believed that that God would take someone who has the inability to accept or reject Him and send that person to hell because that's just His purpose.
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And we're just going to be okay with, "I created Him and He can't accept or reject Christ, but I'm going to send Him to hell just because that's what I think." Let me ask you, does that sound like God to you?
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You've been studying God's Word.
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Does any of that sound like the character and the heart of God that we read in His revealed Word?
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Does that sound like God to you?
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Because that sure doesn't sound like God to me.
09:31-10:20
So you're like, "So what do we have here?" What we have in this passage is - and this is no overstatement - this is the gravest warning in the entire Bible that if you're like Jeff, you have one more sermon to preach, you pick the subject, and this is the last sermon before you're heading to heaven, what would it be? It would have to be this, because this is the most urgent warning in all of the Bible, and that is this, "If you will not believe, someday you cannot believe." In other words, if you refuse to receive Jesus Christ today, tomorrow you will be unable to believe in Jesus Christ.
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I want to break that down for you on your outline, jot this down.
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Three reasons you have to receive Jesus today.
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Okay, so last week we were sort of talking to Christians that were like, "You know, I tried witnessing to this guy and he's not listening.
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Why is that?" We kind of saw that in the text.
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I want to speak mainly today of people that are sitting in church or people that are watching the stream and have not yet received Jesus Christ.
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I'm going to show you, there's three reasons you have to receive Him today.
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And jot this one down first of all.
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I already gave you a little spoiler alert, but we're going to flesh this out a bit.
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Number one is because you may not be able to tomorrow.
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You have to receive Jesus today because you may not be able to tomorrow.
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Look at verse 37 again.
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It says, "Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him." So many miracles that we've seen, not just that John recorded, but Matthew recorded, others, and Mark, and Luke, so many miracles, and they still refuse to believe.
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Literally in the Greek, it translates this way, "They kept on not believing on him." That was their commentary.
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kept on not believing on Him, no matter what.
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Now this isn't some sort of a passing comment.
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This verse is the key to understanding the rest of the passage, because yes, we're going to see God blinded.
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Yes, God hardened their hearts, but not arbitrarily.
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God did that because they chose not to believe.
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These people saw Jesus Christ.
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They knew about Him.
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They experienced some things with Him, but they refused to believe in Him, so now, they can't.
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They can't.
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And if you haven't received Jesus Christ, if you've been coming to church, or watching online, and you've been meaning to get around to it Someday, I hope, probably, I think I might do that.
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You can end up just like these people, and that is a horrific and tragic way to live.
12:47-12:56
Because there's a physical law that's also a spiritual law that we see taking place right here.
12:57-12:59
And that law is called atrophy.
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So try this if you don't believe me.
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What's atrophy?
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We're just gonna call it use it or lose it.
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Use it or lose it.
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So if you don't believe me, I'm gonna give you a little experiment to try.
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You can try this at home.
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And you only need one thing.
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You just need a piece of rope.
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Tie your arm to your side, okay?
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Real tight.
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And don't use that arm for a month.
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You know what happens after a month?
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You lose function of that arm.
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Use it or lose it, pal.
13:38-13:43
I read some stories this week about people who had to learn how to walk again after being in a coma.
13:43-13:47
Do you know those people spent decades knowing how to walk before they ended up in a coma?
13:47-13:49
So why did they have to learn to walk again?
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Use it or lose it.
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This is true physically, and this is true spiritually.
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Listen, here's what he's saying.
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You need to exercise faith when you can, or you will lose the ability to exercise faith.
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The day will come when you cannot believe.
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Did you see that in the text?
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Verse 37, look at this again.
14:13-14:21
It says, "They still did not believe in Him." Now jump down to verse 39, "Therefore, they could not believe." Did you see that?
14:21-14:22
Did you see that?
14:22-14:24
Would not turned into could not.
14:24-14:25
Did you see that?
14:25-14:26
How did that happen?
14:27-14:28
Use it or lose it.
14:30-14:37
By the laws of nature that God created, God blinds and hardens people who refuse to believe.
14:37-14:45
If you choose unbelief, if that's your choice, the hand of God is in the consequence of that choice.
14:49-14:51
We've seen this in Romans chapter one, haven't we?
14:52-14:57
Where people refused to acknowledge God, they didn't give thanks to God, they wouldn't worship God.
14:57-15:00
Three times in Romans 1, God gave them over.
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God's like, "Oh, you don't want me.
15:02-15:02
All right.
15:03-15:04
You don't have to have me.
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Oh, you prefer sin.
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You can have sin." And he just lets them have it.
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And what happens?
15:11-15:13
We saw, you know, debased minds.
15:15-15:16
We saw applauding sin.
15:16-15:17
We talked about all that stuff.
15:18-15:19
That's the same principle in play here.
15:20-15:25
For the person that says, "I don't want to receive Jesus Christ." God's going to be like, "Okay.
15:29-15:30
You don't want to see?
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Then I'll make it so you're unable to see.
15:39-15:41
You want to open your heart up to the gospel?
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Well, I'll make it so that you can't open your heart." God is saying use it or lose it.
15:49-15:52
You're like, "Well, why would God do that?" That's a great question.
15:53-15:54
Why would God harden a person's heart?
15:55-15:55
Why would He do that?
15:59-16:04
There's a whole lot of reasons, but I'm just going to give you my top two that you need to consider.
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Why would God harden a person's heart?
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Jot these down.
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The first one is God gives us what we want.
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It's just that simple.
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God gives us what we want, here and eternally.
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This is God's way of saying, "Oh, you don't want the light of the gospel?
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Well, then I'm just going to turn all the lights off." You prefer darkness, okay.
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Then you'll have it.
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By the way, the really devastating thing about that is that's true for eternity.
16:40-16:41
That's what hell is.
16:42-16:47
God says, "You don't want Me, My truth, My love, My people, worship, you don't want any of that?
16:48-16:58
Well, I have a place that I prepared for the devil and his angels that's going to be separate from Me where that stuff that I mentioned, that doesn't happen there.
16:58-17:08
And if you don't want Me, I'll put you in a place eternally where you'll never have to deal with Me." That's really God giving people what they want.
17:10-17:12
That's how people make God out to be the bad guy.
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If you don't want worship, God's truth, God's people, God's presence, if you don't want those things, you don't want to go to heaven because that's what you have for eternity.
17:26-17:27
So God hardens a person's heart.
17:27-17:40
First of all, it's Him giving us what we want, but I want you to think about this, and boy, this is a whole other sermon series, but God hardening a person's heart is merciful to that person.
17:40-17:41
Like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
17:42-17:46
Now you lost me." How is it merciful that God would harden the person's heart?
17:46-17:53
Because there's another principle in place spiritually that we see through God's Word, and that's this, the more you know, the more you're accountable to know.
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And the more you're accountable for.
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To whom much is given, much is required.
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The more you know, the more you are accountable for.
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And Jesus made it clear, the more that you know and the more that you reject, the worse judgment will be for you.
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The worse hell will be for you.
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That's why Jesus said to the people of His day that He was standing there preaching to, He said, "You know what?
18:26-18:32
It's going to be better for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment." Remember how wicked those cities were?
18:32-19:08
He said, "Yeah, they were wicked, but they didn't have the Son of God standing in front of them. The more you know, the more you're accountable for. And this is God's way of being merciful to say, "I'm going to block off the spiritual information flow because hell's going to be a lot worse if you keep taking it in and not doing anything with it." So it's merciful. So for those of you that are sitting here, those of you that are watching the stream and you haven't gotten serious about Jesus Christ, you're in a really bad spot.
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Because if you don't act on the truth, God will take away your ability to recognize the truth.
19:20-19:28
If your heart isn't open to the gospel, it gets calloused and unable to receive it.
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It's like seed falling on a hard ground.
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It's not going to take root.
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And the problem's not the seed, the problem is the ground.
19:37-19:39
It's the same thing with the gospel.
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The problem isn't the gospel, the problem is your heart.
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And if you decide you're going to harden your heart against the gospel, God is going to cooperate with that action and He will harden your heart.
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That's why you have to respond today.
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Because you might not be able to tomorrow.
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Look at verse 41.
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It says, "Isaiah said these things because he saw His glory and spoke of Him." You're like, "Wait, Isaiah saw Jesus?" Yeah, remember we mentioned Isaiah 6, Isaiah seeing God in the temple, and the train of his robe filling and the angels and John saying that was Jesus that Isaiah saw and you're like well why is this comment here I mean besides that's awesome why is this comment here and he's just simply pointing out that the same principles been in play since ancient Israel They refuse to look to God.
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So God says, "I'm shutting their eyes." They refuse to allow them into their hearts.
20:56-21:02
God says, "Well, then your heart's going to be hard." And this law has been as consistent over time as gravity.
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It was true in Isaiah's day.
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It was true and fulfilled in Jesus' day, and it's also true in our day.
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God is the same, people are the same, and the response is the same.
21:15-21:31
that you can get to the place in your life where you have said no to Jesus Christ so many times and rejected Him, God will give you over to your blindness, give you over to your hardness of heart, that you can live the rest of your life on this earth unable to receive Jesus Christ.
21:32-21:40
And there are other places in the Bible that speak about this, and if I had more time, I'd love to chase that down with you.
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But this is a spiritual truth.
21:44-21:45
it or lose it.
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Right now somebody might be like, "Whoa, man.
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I never really understood this before, but now I'm wondering, have I done that?
21:57-21:58
Have I crossed that line?
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I mean I haven't received Christ yet, I haven't seen, this is resonating, but have I hardened and blinded myself beyond hope?
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Have I crossed?
22:10-22:15
Am I like one of these guys now?" Well, I got some great news for you.
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If you're asking that, if you're wondering about that, if that scares you to death, then the answer is more than likely no.
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Because the person who truly gets in this condition doesn't even care to ask.
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That you try to share the gospel with them and they're like, "Not interested, don't care." Well, I do have to warn you again, as I have often, every time you say no to Jesus, it gets easier to say no the next time, and then it gets easier to say no the next time, and then it gets easier to say no the next time, and then, you're like, "Why are we still talking about this.
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I shared with you before the man that I encountered in prison ministry, he's like, "Hey, so if somebody prays to receive Jesus on their deathbed, they go to heaven, right?" And I said, "Yeah, that's true." He goes, "Well, I'm just going to do that." And it was so funny to look at his face because it was like he found a way to cheat the system.
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Like the Almighty all-knowing didn't think about that, huh?
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I just found a way in.
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And what he was saying was I could live like the devil for my life on the earth and I'll just kind of slip in the back door of heaven at the end, right?
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Because I mean, you said deathbed, you talked about thief on the cross, not by works.
23:54-24:04
He says, "Oh yeah." He goes, "I'll just give my life to Jesus on my deathbed." And I said, "No, you won't." He was like, "What do you mean no, I won't?" You won't do that.
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He's like, what are you talking about?
24:07-24:10
I said, I'm gonna give you two reasons why that's not gonna happen.
24:11-24:15
Numero uno, said you might not have a deathbed.
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I know, I know Jesse, we all wanna think that our lives go like this.
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I live to be 104, and then one day I'm really tired, and I'm laying in bed and the doctor says, he's about to pass away peacefully, and the family comes in, and they're all around my bedside holding my hand, and I just go to sleep.
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And everybody says kumbaya or whatever, but that's how we're all gonna go.
24:51-24:52
Do you know how rare that is?
24:54-24:56
That people actually have a deathbed experience?
24:58-24:59
That's just not the norm.
24:59-25:01
So I'm like, you might not have that.
25:01-25:04
But I told this man, you know what, I'm gonna give it to you.
25:04-25:06
I'm gonna say hypothetically, I'm gonna give you that.
25:06-25:15
I'm gonna say you're going to live to be over 100 and you're gonna have this ripe old life and you're gonna have your deathbed and your family's gonna be around you.
25:15-25:19
I said, I can guarantee you you will not receive Jesus Christ on that day.
25:20-25:21
He goes, well, why not?
25:21-25:31
I said, because that means from today, every day, Until that day, you're on your deathbed, you're saying no to Jesus Christ.
25:32-25:44
So you're telling me that on your deathbed, you're magically going to be into spiritual realities and you're suddenly going to have this hunger for Jesus that I didn't have the last 70 years.
25:44-25:46
I call baloney on that.
25:46-25:47
That's not gonna happen.
25:48-25:55
You're not gonna suddenly be interested in Jesus because you have said no your entire life.
25:57-25:58
What's one more time?
25:59-26:04
And I told him, if that's your plan, what you're planning is to harden your heart.
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If you won't believe today, you may not be able to tomorrow.
26:12-26:15
Three reasons you have to receive Jesus today.
26:16-26:21
Number two, because healing is available right now.
26:23-26:24
Look at verse 40 again.
26:26-26:40
It says, "He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they see with their eyes and understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them." So do you see, he's saying, if they hadn't refused me, then they could turn to me and experience healing.
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But because they refused me, they're never going to experience healing.
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If you harden your heart, you're never going to experience what God wants for you.
26:58-27:03
You'll never know of His goodness and blessing in this life and you're not going to know of the eternal blessing of heaven.
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For those of you that have been putting it off, I just have to ask you, what's keeping you from believing?
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What is it?
27:16-27:17
What are you waiting for?
27:19-27:20
Why are you putting it off?
27:22-27:26
Maybe do you think you're a good enough person to go to heaven on your own merit?
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Because none of us are.
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None of us.
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We all need Jesus Christ.
27:34-27:37
Is there some sin in your life that you don't want to forsake?
27:38-27:44
Like, "Well, if I come to Jesus, I know He's going to want to deal with this sin." Is that what's holding you back?
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Are you afraid of what your friends and family are going to say?
27:51-27:59
Like, "Oh, he started going to that church that meets in that office building and now he's one of them Jesus kooks." You afraid of your family saying something like that?
27:59-28:00
Or worse?
28:03-28:05
Have you not found God's love compelling?
28:08-28:12
Don't you recognize that He is what is missing from your life?
28:17-28:22
Today, today, you can receive and experience healing.
28:25-28:27
And that means way more than physical healing.
28:27-28:36
A lot of times when we talk about healing, we think of cancer or a virus, and yes, that's part of it.
28:37-28:39
But this is so much more than that.
28:40-28:43
This is not just healing in your body, but healing in your mind.
28:44-28:45
Healing in your spirit.
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It's total healing.
28:51-28:53
And I want to remind you that God loves you.
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He loves you and He demonstrated that love through Jesus Christ.
28:59-29:00
And did you know God wants to give you everything?
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And by everything, I mean literally everything.
29:04-29:07
He wants to give you everything.
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Forgiveness of sin, eternal life, every provision in this life, and comfort, and peace, and joy, and everything that God wants to give you comes through the person of Jesus Christ.
29:23-29:25
So I have to ask you, why would you wait?
29:28-29:40
It would be like, imagine you had a horrible series of events in your life, where you ended up living in a dumpster.
29:42-29:55
And after living in this dumpster for a year, somebody comes along and sees you and feels bad for you, and says, "I'll be right back." And they come back and say, "Hey, here's the keys to a mansion.
29:56-29:56
You know what?
29:56-29:57
It's all yours.
29:58-31:20
have it. What would you do? Would you say, "Loving the dumpster life, bro! Thanks, but no thanks!" Would you do that? You're like, "Is it a really nice dumpster?" Of course you wouldn't. You wouldn't wait. If somebody handed you the keys to a house, you would say, "Well, why am I living here? I don't have to live here. This is horrible. Why do I have to live here? I was given access to something better." For those of you that haven't received Christ, I want to ask you, do you feel like your life's in a dumpster right now, maybe not literally, but maybe metaphorically, you feel like, "Man, I have been in the dumpster, and I have the pleasure of telling you that God has so much better for you, and you can have it today, because healing's available right now, if you'll turn to Him." The three reasons you have to receive Jesus today, the third one, jot this one down, because you're building your spiritual reputation right now.
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Because you are building your spiritual reputation, or rep, as we say in Shekorah, right now.
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Look at verses 42 and 43.
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Yes, many even of the authorities believed in Him.
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But for fear of the Pharisees, they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue.
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For they love the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God." I'm going to give you a little insight here.
32:00-32:02
This is what my week looked like last week.
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I read this passage.
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And I'm like, "Were these people really believers?
32:11-32:23
Or were they like not believers?" And I kind of looked at the passage, I looked it over and looked it over, and I have this stack of books sitting on my desk that explains some of the Greek wording.
32:26-32:36
Then I got online and looked up some commentaries from people a lot smarter than me, and I'm still not sure.
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So I decided, and we don't normally do this, but we're going to settle this right here today.
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We're going to take a vote.
32:51-32:51
Okay?
32:52-32:53
So here's the issue on the table.
32:53-32:55
Are these people true believers?
32:57-33:04
We're going to take a vote, but don't vote yet because I want to present the options to you and let you think about them for a second.
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And then we're going to vote.
33:09-33:12
And however rich Sprunk votes is how I'm going to believe.
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I heard somebody say amen.
33:19-33:22
I'm going to give you the sales pitch for both sides, okay?
33:23-33:26
Were these people true believers?
33:27-33:31
First when I read this, I'm like, "Well, no, obviously they're not." Here's the sales pitch for no.
33:33-33:37
They didn't seem to reflect the radical call of discipleship that Jesus just made.
33:38-33:56
Remember Jesus just said, "You're going to hate your life, and that's when you find it?" I'm like, "Well, boy, these people sure didn't meet that criteria, did they?" I mean, they were afraid of the religious leaders, they wouldn't confess to believing Jesus, they were afraid of getting thrown out of the synagogues, and they cared more about what man thought of them than what God thought.
33:56-34:00
So I'm like, "Absolutely, these guys can't be believers, like not true believers.
34:01-34:01
That's no.
34:04-34:11
Don't vote yet because I did a little more digging." Here's the sales pitch for yes, that they were true believers.
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And the yes comes from the way this is worded in the Greek.
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The way this is worded in the Greek seems to indicate they were believers, just really private secret wimpy believers.
34:24-34:42
And a lot of that hinges on one word, and that's the word, look at your Bibles, verse 42, the first word, my Bible says "nevertheless." Now understand in the Greek, that is like ultimate emphatic.
34:44-34:49
In other words, you're reading this passage, you're reading through John 12, and here's the flow.
34:49-34:56
It's like some people are blind and hardened as prophesied and will never experience God's salvation.
34:57-35:01
Nevertheless, there were some people in the authorities that believed.
35:04-35:19
So that word nevertheless being so emphatic, it's like, "But!" Like there were people who rejected and God hardened them, "But these guys." That's a sales pitch for yes.
35:19-35:20
All right, so we're going to vote.
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By show of hands, and you can vote at home on the stream.
35:27-35:29
Yes, I can see you on the stream.
35:29-35:30
I know how you're voting.
35:32-35:33
It's just to freak them out, Alex.
35:36-35:39
No, no, no, no, no paper about.
35:39-35:40
We learned our lesson.
35:42-35:43
We learned our lesson.
35:45-35:47
Like wow, we had 500 yes votes.
35:50-35:56
And 300 of them came in Sunday night after youth group.
35:58-35:59
And we told everybody to go to sleep.
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All right, so do we know what we're voting for?
36:04-36:08
How many people say, "No, I don't think these people were true believers." Show of hands.
36:08-36:11
You're like, "Don't meet the call of discipleship that Jesus just said.
36:12-36:13
Raise them high, come on.
36:13-36:17
No, no, no." Okay, we have a handful of people here in person that say no.
36:17-36:20
How many people say, "I think they are true believers." Yes.
36:21-36:21
Okay.
36:22-36:23
More than the no's.
36:26-36:27
Which said yes?
36:31-36:32
So we're going to say yes.
36:36-36:44
You're like, "So which is it?" Truthfully, because of the word nevertheless, the way the Greek syntax and the word...that's kind of how I lean on that.
36:47-36:47
But I'm not sure.
36:49-37:11
But, but, but, but, but, there is one thing that I can say for sure, 100% absolute certainty there's one thing that I can say for sure about this passage, that this is a really sad commentary on these men that has been recorded forever in the Word of God.
37:13-37:14
Isn't it?
37:17-37:19
Could you imagine running into one of these guys in heaven?
37:20-37:20
Like, who are you?
37:21-37:24
I was one of the authorities in Jesus' day.
37:25-37:27
You might've read about me in John 12.
37:30-37:37
And you're like, "Oh, you were the guy "that was too scared to confess Jesus." Oh, yeah.
37:39-37:41
"You cared more about what people thought of you than God.
37:41-37:43
"Is that you?" Oh, well, did it say that?
37:43-37:44
Oh, I guess it does say that.
37:46-37:57
"You were concerned about being thrown out of the synagogue." "Yeah, it's kind of lame." All I can say is, look, this isn't the testimony that I want.
37:59-38:07
And even if these people are believers, let's just say they are, even if they're believers, this is such a terrible way to be described!
38:10-38:16
But there are people here today that really fall into this same camp.
38:17-38:19
Like I don't know where any of you are with Jesus.
38:19-38:21
I don't have like magic preacher glasses that I can see your heart.
38:22-38:24
So he's definitely not saving them, she definitely is.
38:25-38:37
I have no way of emphatically determining such a thing, but we have people, same camp.
38:37-38:42
I believe in Jesus, but I'm afraid of people.
38:43-38:46
I believe in Jesus, but I'm afraid of what somebody might say to me.
38:46-38:50
Or is it going to affect me negatively in some way?
38:52-38:57
I believe in Jesus, but really I prefer affirmation from people more than from God.
38:59-39:42
I just want to remind you that right now, right now, you are building your spiritual reputation right now, your legacy right now. And living a half-hearted commitment is not only a disgrace to you, but it's damaging to others that you might have influence over. Like what do you mean by that? I'm not going to mention names, but recently there was a famous Christian apologist who passed And soon after he died, came out all of these allegations of sexual sin.
39:45-40:01
And when something like that happens, and all that happens so often, but when something like that happens, it not only calls the person's legacy into question, but let's be honest, it calls the person's salvation into question in the back of our minds, doesn't it?
40:03-40:07
And we hear a story like that and think, "Wow.
40:09-40:10
Was he really saved?
40:12-40:19
I mean, I thought he was, but wow." And suddenly this guy is just like the Jewish authorities here.
40:20-40:21
Were they truly saved?
40:21-40:33
And we're like, "I don't know, but I wonder, how can someone who knows Jesus act like that?" And I just have to ask you, church, is that the legacy that you want?
40:35-40:37
Is that the legacy that you want?
40:40-41:00
That someday I'm doing your funeral and I'm standing up and I'm like, "He believed in Jesus," and you're sitting there and you're going, "But he had a lot of secret sin that we found out about after he died." Is that the legacy you want?
41:00-41:16
I'm standing at your funeral and I say, "Well, she believed in Jesus." And you're going, "But, you know, she kept it private because she was so worried about what other people might think about her if they found out she loved Jesus." Is that the legacy you want?
41:19-41:30
Like he believed in Jesus and you're like, "But he always seemed to care more about pleasing people than pleasing God.
41:31-41:32
Is that the legacy you want?
41:34-41:35
Right now we're all like, "No.
41:37-41:59
I sure wouldn't want to be remembered that way." Then I would say, "Well, then get your spiritual act together today so that someday when people talk about your faith, unlike these guys here, they don't have to say, 'But today, today, When? Today!
42:01-42:02
Why does it have to be today?
42:03-42:06
Because today is the only day that you're guaranteed to have.
42:08-42:10
So today has to be the day of salvation.
42:10-42:13
Tomorrow, you might not be here.
42:15-42:22
Or your heart may be too hard to receive Jesus Christ and all that He has to give you.
42:23-42:25
I'd like you to bow your heads with me please as the worship team comes up.
42:28-42:30
Just bow your heads, we're not looking around.
42:32-42:33
Because we don't care what people think, right?
42:33-42:34
We care what God thinks.
42:35-42:37
So just bow your head and close your eyes.
42:40-42:48
And I want to talk specifically to people that have sort of been hanging out at church but haven't received Jesus Christ personally.
42:49-42:50
You can do that today.
42:52-42:54
In fact, you absolutely have to do that today.
42:55-42:57
Because tomorrow you might not feel like it.
42:58-43:04
Just with your head bowed, I just want you to pray something like this.
43:05-43:11
It's not a matter of repeating the words, it's embracing the call of the gospel.
43:12-43:23
What you need to pray right now, "God, I recognize that I am a lost and hopeless sinner on my own." Pray that.
43:25-43:34
Pray, "God, I understand that Jesus Christ came to die for my sin.
43:36-43:47
Jesus Christ took the punishment that I deserve, and Jesus Christ rose from the dead to give me the promise of eternal life.
43:50-43:59
God, I believe that You love me, and that You came to provide a way that I can be with You for eternity.
44:02-44:02
Pray that.
44:05-44:13
Pray, "God, I want to receive Him today, because I realize...
44:14-44:16
If I don't use it, I'll lose it.
44:19-44:21
I realize spiritual atrophy is a thing.
44:24-44:26
So Father, give me the faith to believe today.
44:29-44:39
Give me the faith to turn from my sin and embrace this gift in Jesus Christ that You have so lovingly given.
44:42-44:50
Father, I pray for those that maybe you're praying that right now are still wrestling through that right now.
44:53-45:00
I pray, Father, You would draw them to You through the glorious gospel of Your Son.
45:02-45:17
So if anyone prayed that prayer, or if you're like I want to, I want to encourage you to come and see me, Or contact me.
45:18-45:19
Like, when should I do that?
45:21-45:21
Today.
45:23-45:23
Let's do it today.
45:25-45:27
In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, forever.
45:30-45:30
Amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read John 12:36-43

What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
When thinking about “how salvation works”, do you lean more towards “God's sovereignty” or “man's responsibility”? Why?
Should we give up on someone who has rejected the Gospel? Is there ever a right time to assume they are “blinded and hard hearted” beyond hope? Or do we keep appealing to them to believe in Jesus?
The authorities in John 12:42-43, do you believe they were truly saved or not? Why?

Breakout
Pray for one another.

Jeff Miller

March 7, 2021

Knowing Jesus

Knowing Jesus - Knowing His Purpose

Jeff Miller

March 7, 2021

Knowing Jesus

Introduction:

Three Things Jesus Accomplished on the Cross that Glorify God (John 12:27-36):

The world was Judged . (John 12:31a)
Acts 17:31 - "because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."

  
    Satan was Defeated . (John 12:31b)
  
Salvation was Purchased . (John 12:32-33)
  
  What Keeps People From Believing? (John 12:34-36):

They think they already know all the Answers . (John 12:34)
They are not aware of their Condition . (John 12:35b)
They have no sense of Urgency . (John 12:36)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:00-00:02
Open up your Bibles to John chapter 12.
00:04-00:17
We're going to be picking up in our series, "Knowing Jesus." And last week, we saw Jesus spoke of His death in general terms, and how it affects us, disciples.
00:18-00:27
And in the passage we're looking at here, picking up in verse 27, Jesus speaks of His death in specific terms, and how it affects Him personally.
00:28-00:34
So look at verse 27. Jesus said, "Now is my soul troubled.
00:34-00:49
And what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour, but for this purpose I have come to this hour.'" You know, when you read the Gospels, it's obvious that the cross was always on Jesus' mind.
00:50-00:54
You know? But not in a worried way.
00:54-00:58
But just in a, I guess we could call it a preoccupied way.
00:59-01:02
It just seemed like Jesus was always thinking about the cross. Have you noticed that?
01:04-01:07
Always preoccupied. Have you ever been there? You know, maybe you have a job interview.
01:08-01:23
You're not worried about it, but you know this is a big deal, and you're thinking about it, and what should I wear, what's it going to be like, and what are they going to ask me, and that event that's coming, it's just constantly circulating through your hard drive, right?
01:24-01:31
Or maybe you have an upcoming surgery, and you're not worried about it, but you're just like preoccupied with it.
01:31-01:34
Like, it's going through your head, and what's recovery going to be like?
01:35-01:36
What's the procedure going to be like?
01:36-01:37
What's the facilities going to be like?
01:38-01:40
You're just thinking about it.
01:40-01:46
And when you study the Gospels, it just seems like Jesus was always thinking about the cross coming.
01:46-01:47
This is coming.
01:48-01:51
And now, at this point, it's real close.
01:52-01:59
And Jesus is still thinking about that, the betrayal, the arrest, the mocking, the thorns, the being nailed to the cross.
02:00-02:03
It's all just right around the corner and He knew that.
02:03-02:08
But I want to remind you that Jesus wasn't fretting over the pain.
02:09-02:14
That's what most people talk about when they talk about the cross, is the pain.
02:14-02:23
The pain, "Oh, it hurts so bad and here's a study of how the spikes went through the nerves and it was so painful and so many sermons and articles and studies.
02:24-02:28
But you realize the Bible doesn't talk about the pain, the physical pain.
02:28-02:29
It just doesn't.
02:29-02:36
What Jesus was troubled over here wasn't that I'm going to endure some physical pain.
02:36-03:33
What Jesus was troubled over here was he was about to endure the wrath of God on himself for my sin and for your sin and for the sin of everyone who would ever believe in Him, Jesus was taking all of that sin on Himself to face the wrath of God. And Jesus' response is, "So what should I say about that? What are my options here?" And Jesus says, "I don't really have any options because this is exactly why I came. This event, this moment, this hour, everything that I have been doing for these last 33 years, especially these three years of ministry, Jesus said, "Everything is about this hour." It's right around the corner. You're like, "Well, what exactly?" Look at verse 28. What's the purpose that Jesus has come? He says, "Father, glorify your name." Jesus says, "Father, show them.
03:33-04:00
Show the world who you are. Show them, God. Show them, Father. I know how awesome you God show the world how awesome you are and that happened on the cross and Understand church that the cross is this one single event more than any other event in history That displays the attributes of God in one concentrated scene. Do we have an image here?
04:01-04:19
I just want you to so look at that image And where some people would look at that and say, "Okay, I see a Jewish man being publicly executed." This is the ultimate demonstration of God's glory, because this one scene says everything God wants us to know about Him.
04:20-04:22
For example, what do we see here?
04:23-04:23
You see God's holiness.
04:24-04:26
God will not tolerate sin.
04:26-04:28
Somebody has to pay for sin.
04:28-04:30
Justice has to be done.
04:30-04:55
done. And God says, "I'm going to punish Jesus Christ as if He lived your life, so that He can give you His righteousness, and I'll treat you as if you lived His life." But God says, "Justice has to be done. I'm not just going to overlook or ignore your sin." So this talks about God's justice, and obviously this talks about God's love. God says, "I love you so much. I don't want you to bear the wrath of your own sin. I'm going to provide a substitute.
04:55-04:57
This is how much I love you.
04:57-05:01
So we see God's justice, we see God's love.
05:01-05:02
Do you know what else we see?
05:02-05:03
It's God's wisdom.
05:04-05:10
How can God execute justice and demonstrate mercy at the same time?
05:10-05:11
God says, "Here's my solution.
05:11-05:13
I'll take your sin on myself.
05:14-05:14
I'll bear the sin.
05:15-05:28
I'll provide the payment." And I could keep this scene up here and I could talk until September about some of you are laughing and thinking, "He's going to do it!
05:28-05:34
He's going to do it!" But understand this scene, this is where God was glorified.
05:35-05:38
This is where God says, "Hey, here's who I am!
05:38-05:39
Do you want to know who God is?
05:39-05:40
Right there!
05:40-05:41
Right there!
05:41-05:43
This tells you everything you need to know about God.
05:47-05:49
Awesome!" It's a rare event.
05:49-05:50
The Father answers.
05:51-05:52
Look back at your text.
05:53-06:14
Jesus says, "Father, glorify Your name." "Then a voice came from heaven." "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again." "The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered." "Others said, 'An angel has spoken to him.'" Jesus answered, "This voice has come for your sake, not mine." Stop there.
06:15-06:20
the voice was for the disciples. The crowd actually seemed a little confused.
06:21-06:45
Like, "What was it? Was that thunder? Was that an angel? What was it? What exactly was going on there?" And there was confusion. I read one commentator this week said, "Oh, how it must have comforted Jesus to hear from the Father in this moment." And that's just not what's going on here, because Jesus said, "This wasn't for me. I know why I'm here. I know how I'm going to glorify God." That voice, that's for you.
06:45-06:46
That was for the disciples.
06:47-06:48
That was for people who have ears to hear.
06:49-06:52
Well, how was the voice for the disciples?
06:52-06:55
You know, there are people that struggled at the thought of Jesus dying.
06:56-06:58
And this was the Father saying, "Hey, hey, hey, this is the plan.
06:59-06:59
Okay?
06:59-07:08
This is the plan." Because many people in Jesus' day and in our day, they thought that suffering was evidence that God was mad at you.
07:08-07:12
I hear that all the time, and I've got to tell you, I cringe.
07:13-07:15
If you've said that in front of me, I'm just being honest with you.
07:15-07:20
I cringe inside when people say, "Life's just been so hard, I've been dealing with all this stuff.
07:20-07:21
I think God's mad at me.
07:21-07:28
I think God's punishing me." We equate suffering with God being mad at us, and that's just not true.
07:29-07:32
Jesus isn't dying because God is displeased with him.
07:33-07:35
God's voice from the heavens, this was confirming.
07:36-07:37
This is about my glory.
07:38-07:40
Like, okay, you said that a couple times, Jeff.
07:40-07:42
Jesus' death is about God's glory.
07:42-07:45
Jesus' death is about, can you be really specific what that means?
07:45-07:53
That's kind of an ambiguous term, like specifically, what does it mean that Jesus died for God's glory?
07:54-07:55
Can you be specific?
07:55-07:58
And the answer is yes, because Jesus got really specific here.
07:58-08:00
And on your outline, I want you to jot this down.
08:00-08:03
Three things that Jesus accomplished on the cross that glorify God.
08:03-08:07
All right, I'm still working on shortening the headings of these outlines, but I'm not there yet.
08:07-08:09
I'm a work in progress like you.
08:09-08:12
Three things Jesus accomplished on the cross to glorify God.
08:12-08:14
Jesus comes right out with it.
08:14-08:15
Now, first of all, look at verse 31.
08:16-08:21
Okay, so Jesus says, "This voice, "this was for your sake," verse 31.
08:22-08:26
"Now is the judgment of this world." Stop there.
08:27-08:30
First thing Jesus accomplished on the cross that glorifies God is the world was judged.
08:31-08:34
Like, what does that even mean?
08:34-08:35
Don't miss this.
08:36-08:37
It just simply means this.
08:38-08:42
The cross is the basis of God's judgment.
08:43-08:49
Not your works, not your accomplishments, not your attempts, nay, not even your motives, which a lot of people think.
08:49-08:50
I was a good person.
08:50-08:52
God knows I've always tried to do the right thing.
08:52-08:53
God will understand.
08:54-08:55
That doesn't do it.
08:55-08:57
The cross is the basis of God's judgment.
08:58-08:58
It's the cross.
08:59-09:01
The cross is the line of demarcation.
09:02-09:04
What matters is what you do with Jesus' sacrifice.
09:04-09:06
That's what Jesus is talking about here.
09:07-09:08
That's what Paul was talking about.
09:08-09:12
Acts 17 31, the cross judges the world.
09:12-09:19
This is where Paul says, because God, he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness.
09:20-09:22
Well, how's God going to judge the world?
09:22-09:24
Right here, by a man whom he has appointed.
09:25-09:31
And just in case you're unclear which man this is, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.
09:31-09:43
So you see Jesus, his work on the cross, that's the judgment on the world, because failure to repent and believe in Jesus results in eternal separation from God forever in hell.
09:44-09:47
And people say, well, you know, a loving God wouldn't send someone to hell.
09:48-09:48
I don't believe in hell.
09:49-09:52
I don't think hell's real because a loving God wouldn't do that.
09:53-09:54
A loving God would not send someone to hell.
09:55-09:59
And my response is, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, God's love is not in question here.
09:59-10:00
God's love is not in question.
10:00-10:02
I have to ask you, what else could God have done?
10:03-10:04
What else could God have done?
10:05-10:08
We have rebelled against Him, so God says, "Here's what I'm going to do.
10:08-10:15
I'm going to send my Son, and He's going to be rejected and murdered, bearing the sin of the world on Himself.
10:16-10:28
He's going to take the wrath of the Father on Himself for your wickedness, and He's going to offer you eternal life as a free gift." God is saying, "Your sin will destroy you and condemn you here.
10:28-10:36
Turn from that and come and receive what I offer." And if you refuse that, what else is God supposed to do?
10:37-10:39
And that's why the cross is the judgment.
10:40-10:42
Jesus bore God's judgment on the cross.
10:42-10:52
So you can take Jesus' gift, you can receive his gift, or you can reject that and you can bear God's judgment yourself.
10:53-10:54
But the cross is the judgment.
10:54-10:57
Second thing that happened on the cross, it glorifies God.
10:57-10:59
Jesus continues, Satan was defeated.
11:00-11:01
Look back again at verse 31.
11:01-11:08
Jesus says, "Now will the ruler of this world be cast out." Satan is called the ruler of this world.
11:09-11:11
Do I have to sell anybody on his influence right now?
11:11-11:12
Do I have to sell you on that?
11:12-11:15
Do I have to sell you that Satan has the world under his grip right now?
11:16-11:18
He has this deceptive influence.
11:18-11:21
He's not just influencing the world, he's deceiving the world.
11:21-11:26
The world doesn't think that Satan is influencing the world because they are deceived.
11:27-11:30
But Satan was defeated at the cross.
11:30-11:33
And now Satan, yeah, he's still fighting.
11:34-11:41
He's still active, but now he's fighting as if he's a death row inmate, on death row, lashing out.
11:42-11:45
He knows his time's coming, but Satan was defeated on the cross.
11:45-11:47
Thirdly, salvation was purchased.
11:47-11:48
Salvation was purchased.
11:49-11:58
Verse 32, Jesus says, "And I, when I am lifted up "from the earth, will draw all people to myself." He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die.
11:59-12:03
So on the cross, the world was judged, Satan was defeated, salvation was purchased.
12:03-12:08
Jesus said, "When I'm lifted up." Now in those days, that was a figure of speech, right?
12:09-12:12
You're gonna see here in a second, they all knew exactly what that meant.
12:13-12:14
But that was just a figure of speech.
12:14-12:15
We use those things, right?
12:16-12:20
Like if I said to you, "Hey, she got the ax at work." You all know what that means, right?
12:21-12:22
And that was the same thing here.
12:22-12:25
Jesus says, "When I'm lifted up." They're like, "Oh, we know what that means.
12:26-12:30
It means crucified." And Jesus said, "When I'm lifted up, I'll draw all people to myself.
12:30-12:36
Now, obviously that doesn't mean every single person in the world is going to be saved because of Jesus.
12:37-12:40
We've already seen just in our study in John how much rejection there has been.
12:40-12:42
That's not what he's saying at all.
12:42-13:00
When Jesus talks about all people, he means Israel, those Greeks that came earlier, them, every tribe, every nation, every background, no matter who you are, no matter what you've done, salvation has been purchased through Jesus Christ.
13:01-13:08
Now last week we talked about some paradoxes and I love this because in Jesus' statement, he lays out so many more paradoxes.
13:08-13:09
Think about it.
13:10-13:12
First of all, the world was judged.
13:12-13:15
We said, you know, when Jesus was on the cross, the world thought they were judging him.
13:16-13:17
He was judging the world.
13:18-13:20
When Jesus was on the cross, Satan thought he won.
13:21-13:22
You know, Satan had this whole plan.
13:22-13:25
You know, he entered Judas and Judas sold him out.
13:25-13:34
You know that we're gonna be getting to some of that here down the road, well, Satan thought he won, like, took care of him, but it was the cross that Jesus used to defeat Satan.
13:34-13:40
See, the world thought surely, surely, Jesus being crucified will end his influence.
13:41-13:46
And Jesus said it's that death that will draw people to him.
13:47-13:49
All of this driven by one reason.
13:50-13:51
One reason, why would you do this, Jesus?
13:51-13:52
Why would you go through with this?
13:53-13:53
Why would you?
13:54-13:57
Jesus had one motivation, and it was to glorify God.
13:57-13:59
How are you gonna glorify God, Jesus?
13:59-14:04
Because I'm gonna condemn evil, I'm gonna cast out the enemy, I'm gonna purchase salvation for everyone that'll come to me.
14:05-14:06
That's how I'm gonna glorify God.
14:07-14:09
All right, that's like the introduction of the sermon.
14:09-14:17
Because, okay, we're here and we see what Jesus said, and maybe you're like me.
14:17-14:21
You look at Jesus and you're like, why wouldn't everybody just flock to Jesus?
14:22-14:29
Why wouldn't everybody just drop everything as soon as they hear the gospel message and just run to Jesus?
14:31-14:32
What's the downside here?
14:33-14:37
Can you give me a reason to not believe in Jesus?
14:38-14:40
Can you give me a compelling reason to not follow Jesus?
14:40-14:41
Does anybody have one?
14:42-14:43
What's the problem?
14:44-14:50
And look, you guys fill out your friendship registers and you have to know that I pray for those every week.
14:50-14:52
and we have members of our prayer team praying for those every week.
14:53-14:54
I know what you're praying for.
14:55-15:15
And I see the names and I pray for the people, but so often what we see, pray for my neighbor who doesn't know the Lord, pray for my parents who don't know the Lord, pray for my coworkers who don't know the Lord, and names are given, and we have all of these people in our lives that we've been praying for.
15:15-15:17
I got them in my life too, people we've been praying for.
15:18-15:21
And after a while, you're like, Why won't they receive Jesus?
15:22-15:23
I don't get the hesitation here.
15:24-15:25
What's the problem?
15:25-15:29
I mean, from what I can see, this looks like a pretty sweet deal.
15:29-15:46
Jesus takes my sin and shame and wickedness, and he takes it away from me and says, "I'm going to give you the righteousness of God, promise of eternal life, co-heirs with Christ, glories of heaven forever and ever." Who's not taking that deal?
15:47-15:50
People just kind of baffle us with their rejection of Jesus.
15:51-15:54
And then they reject Jesus because there's some sin in their life that they like better.
15:55-15:59
Like, you know, I hear what you're saying about what God offers, but I like my addiction better.
15:59-16:01
I like my pornography better.
16:01-16:04
I like my wrong relationships better.
16:05-16:06
I don't get it.
16:07-16:07
I don't understand.
16:07-16:10
Why won't people believe in Jesus?
16:11-16:13
Well, here's the sermon today.
16:14-16:18
I want to show you why people won't believe in Jesus Christ.
16:18-16:26
Because people today don't believe in Jesus for the same reasons that this crowd right here didn't believe in Jesus.
16:27-16:30
So on your outline, what keeps people from believing?
16:31-16:43
And I want this to not only educate, but also to encourage for all of you who alongside of me are praying for the lost in our lives.
16:44-16:45
and we get discouraged and we're baffled.
16:46-16:47
What keeps people from believing?
16:48-16:57
We're gonna see three things here as a response to Jesus laying all this out, giving us his purpose, how he's gonna glorify God.
16:57-16:59
Look at how this crowd reacts.
17:00-17:01
What keeps people from believing?
17:01-17:02
Letter A, write this down.
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They think they already know all the answers.
17:05-17:11
Verse 34, "So the crowd answered him, "we have heard from the law that the Christ remains forever.
17:12-18:48
"How can you say that the Son of Man be lifted up. Who is this son of man? Stop there. Right out of the gate. They demonstrated what could be the number one reason that people, especially in our culture, won't come to Jesus Christ. Did you see it? Here's why. They think they already know. They think they already know. When the truth is, they really only know a part of the Bible. But that little part they know. That's like the only thing that's relevant to them. Here's what I mean. You see this crowd. Jesus says I'm gonna be lifted up. They knew that man crucified. They're like, "Wait, but we thought you were the Messiah and now you're talking about being crucified." So they're like, "Well that doesn't line up with our theology because you know what the Scriptures say. You know what the law says." They knew verses like Isaiah 9-7, right? They're like, "Well you're talking about being crucified, but that doesn't quite work for us, fella, because we know our scriptures and our scriptures say, and this is exactly how they talked, our scriptures say of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. So you see this idea of being crucified, that ain't biblical pal, and they knew 2nd Samuel 7, they knew Psalm 89, they knew these parts of the Old Testament that said the Messiah would reign forever, but those were the only parts of the Scriptures that they were willing to consider. Messiah is forever. This much we know.
18:48-19:14
Messiah is forever. Messiah is forever. Didn't I just prove it with my proof text? Messiah is forever. What about all the passages of His suffering? These are just a couple off the top of my head here that I wrote down. Isaiah 53.5, Zechariah 12.10, Daniel 9.26, all of Psalm 22. What about of those, what about countless others that say the Messiah is going to suffer and die?
19:14-19:15
What about those?
19:16-19:20
"Well, we do not concern ourselves with those." They're like, "That's not our Messiah.
19:21-19:22
You're talking about death." No, no, no, no, no, no.
19:23-19:25
That's not part of our theology.
19:26-19:29
And you got to help me out here.
19:29-20:37
Is it more obnoxious or is it humorous that the Messiah is standing right in front of them and they take it upon themselves to school him about the Messiah. Like, "Oh no, the Messiah is not going to be crucified." And Jesus is like, "Really? Really? Oh, I do tell." But church, that's the problem that we face today. The people in your life that you've been witnessing to and praying for and sharing. I've seen it so many times and you have too. They know a couple of verses. They know something that they heard once upon a time somewhere. I think I went to VBS or Sunday school or something when I was eight and I think I might have heard this thing once upon a time somewhere and that's all they're willing to consider because they're experts, right? They already know all the answers. And like this crowd, when God doesn't deliver according to their selective theology, now God's the problem. Do you see that? When God doesn't deliver according to their little limited scope of theology, then God's the problem.
20:38-20:40
I mean, I've heard these things, so have you.
20:41-20:43
God promised healing, and it didn't happen.
20:44-20:49
I was praying for my grandma, I was praying for my neighbor, I was praying for my child.
20:49-20:50
It didn't happen.
20:51-20:57
You know, the Bible says, "By his stripes we are healed." And I believed that!
20:58-20:59
And my child died anyways.
21:00-21:08
Well, the context of that passage, "By His stripes we are healed," the context of that passage is from Isaiah 53, by the way.
21:09-21:10
It's all about sin.
21:11-21:16
He's talking about healing us from our sinfulness.
21:17-21:18
That's what he's talking about.
21:18-21:19
Do you even Bible?
21:20-21:24
He's not talking about believing in Jesus means you'll never catch a cold.
21:24-21:29
But there again, we know one little snippet out of context, and that's all we're willing to consider.
21:29-21:30
Or how about this one?
21:30-21:35
"Well, God promised to prosper me and it didn't happen." You know, I used to believe in the Bible.
21:35-21:36
God promised to prosper.
21:37-21:38
Did God promise to prosper us?
21:39-21:40
Yeah, He did, actually.
21:40-21:42
You read Joshua 1, read Psalm 1.
21:43-21:47
God promised, yes, He's promised, but do you know how God defines prosperity?
21:47-21:49
Or maybe a more stinging question is this.
21:50-21:55
Have you done your part to honor God with the stuff that He's entrusted to you?
21:56-21:58
Because it is through that that God prospers.
21:59-22:09
So if they, the people you're trying to reach, if they don't see something fulfilled, they either don't understand the big picture or they misunderstood the promise.
22:10-22:14
Either way, they blame God and they refuse to believe.
22:15-22:16
So what keeps people from believing?
22:16-22:18
One is they think they know all the answers already.
22:19-22:22
Secondly, letter B, jot this down, they're not aware of their condition.
22:23-22:25
Why don't they believe they're not aware of their condition?
22:25-22:26
And look at verse 35.
22:28-22:32
"Jesus said to them, 'The light is among you for a little while longer.
22:33-22:36
Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you.
22:36-22:46
The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going.'" Have you ever been in the dark in an unfamiliar room, stumble around blind?
22:46-22:50
You're like, "Jeff, I stumble in the dark in familiar rooms." Right?
22:51-23:01
Well, that's true in the moral sense that people don't know where they are, and people don't know where their condition is ultimately going to take them.
23:01-23:05
This is the problem that you're dealing with with the unsafe people that you're trying to reach.
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They're not just blind.
23:08-23:09
They have a condition worse than that.
23:10-23:14
They're blind and they're unaware that they're blind.
23:14-23:22
They're stumbling around in the dark, banging into everything, and they're, I can see fine, I can see fine, I can see fine, and they're stumbling.
23:23-23:25
Like, dude, you're in the dark, come to the light.
23:25-23:27
Oh, I can see fine, I can see fine.
23:29-23:33
And Jesus here is like, come into the light.
23:34-23:36
And we echo, come into the light, I can see fine.
23:37-23:42
And these people that we love, we're praying for, they're just constantly blindly hurting themselves.
23:43-23:55
Whether it's being in a bad relationship or drugs and alcohol or laziness or patterns of bad spending, that we look at these things and we're like, Doesn't everybody know that living like this is going to hurt you?
23:56-23:57
It's not going to lead you anywhere good?
23:58-23:59
Doesn't everybody know that?
23:59-23:59
And the answer is no.
24:00-24:06
Not everybody knows that because the people that are invested in living that way are completely blind to it.
24:06-24:11
You are killing yourself, dude, and you don't even realize it because you can see fine.
24:12-24:17
They're so used to walking in the dark, as Jesus said here, it's overtaken them.
24:17-24:19
They're accustomed to it and they refuse to believe.
24:20-24:25
So the people that you're trying to reach, they don't realize their condition, they won't come into the light until they realize they're in the dark.
24:26-24:30
And they're not going to seek Jesus' healing until they realize the nature of their affliction.
24:31-24:34
So some people that you're trying to reach, they're just not aware.
24:35-24:38
They think they have all the answers, but they're not aware of their true condition.
24:39-24:41
And finally, what keeps people from believing?
24:42-24:43
No sense of urgency.
24:44-25:18
Look at verse 36, Jesus said, "While you have the light, believe in the light that you may become sons of light. While you have the light. You realize Jesus said that twice. He said in verse 35. He says it again in verse 36. While you have the light. While you have the light. You know what that tells me? It tells me you don't have forever. You don't have forever. Jesus said believe. Become adopted sons and daughters of the light. Like when should that happen? Now. When God is speaking, that is the critical hour. Do not miss it.
25:19-25:22
God is so patient and God is so merciful.
25:23-25:26
But I have to tell you, eventually, eventually time's up.
25:27-25:32
Like in Noah's day, remember Noah building the ark, preaching, rejected by everybody?
25:33-25:37
If you study that story, there's a very chilling statement that is made.
25:37-25:42
When the rains came and the floods started, the Bible says that God shut the door to the ark.
25:43-25:51
It wasn't Noah's place to say, "Okay, I gave you opportunity." It was God saying, "I gave you opportunity and you refused.
25:51-25:58
Now your time is up." And that's why Jesus just kept emphasizing, "Look, you have the light now.
25:58-25:59
You have opportunity now.
26:00-26:07
You can't wait forever." And this next verse might be just as chilling as God shutting the door.
26:07-26:08
Look at the rest of verse 36.
26:08-26:14
It says, "When Jesus had said these things, He departed and hid Himself from them." Let that sink in.
26:15-26:20
three years, they had God walking around, saying, "Here's who I am.
26:20-26:21
"Here's what I've come to do.
26:22-26:27
"Here's how the kingdom works." And for three years, and then it's over.
26:27-26:29
Then it wasn't like we can't find him anymore.
26:29-26:30
He hid himself.
26:31-26:38
This, in John's gospel, this was the last chance that any of these people could have heard Jesus speak publicly.
26:39-26:45
Like, "Wait a minute, there's a lot of John left here." Well, when you get to John 13 through 17, And that's all for the disciples.
26:46-26:50
But this is where Jesus' public ministry in John, this is where it came to an end.
26:51-26:55
And as Jesus pointed out, the people that you're trying to reach, they have no sense of urgency.
26:56-26:57
There's no thought of their death.
26:58-27:14
When they think of getting right with God or spiritual matters or getting religious or going to church or however they define it, it's always, "I'll get to it later." You know, "I'm going to do my own thing now, but maybe Jesus later." the light's always gonna be on, right?
27:15-27:16
Like Motel 6, right?
27:16-27:18
We'll leave the light on for you, that's God.
27:18-27:20
He's always gonna leave the light on for me.
27:20-27:21
Is that true?
27:22-27:24
The answer is no, that is not true.
27:25-27:33
Because whatever path you're on right now, spoiler alert, whatever path you're on right now ends with meeting Jesus Christ face to face.
27:34-27:41
And eventually you're going to die, and if you have not received him, your opportunity to receive his gift will have ended.
27:41-27:43
That's why you have to receive Him today.
27:44-27:50
So those of you who love the Lord and are sitting here and watching this stream, you're like, yeah, I see that.
27:50-27:52
I see that in the unsaved people I'm trying to reach.
27:52-27:53
So what do I do about that?
27:54-27:54
What should I do?
27:55-27:57
All these things, yeah, it's the same thing.
27:57-27:57
What should I do?
27:58-27:59
You need to point them to the cross.
28:00-28:02
You need to lovingly point out their condition.
28:03-28:07
You need to show them the urgency and you need to give them the whole story.
28:07-28:09
God has to draw them.
28:09-28:12
Yes, absolutely, but as we've studied, God partners with people.
28:13-28:14
He partners with you.
28:15-28:16
And I wanna let you in on a little secret.
28:17-28:26
You know, when you submit those prayer requests with your names of people, I pray for the people a little bit, but when I get those requests, you know who I'm praying for mostly?
28:27-28:28
I'm praying for you.
28:29-28:32
Yes, I lift those people up, but I spend my time praying for you.
28:33-28:36
I'm praying for you to have opportunity to tell them.
28:36-28:41
I'm praying for God to speak through you and open that door.
28:42-28:46
And when that happens, that they would recognize God's voice.
28:47-28:55
I'm praying for you to truly know His purpose when you get the word out to the lost.
28:55-28:56
Let's pray.
28:56-29:02
Father in heaven, we see the same principles of play in our day that we see in your word here.
29:03-29:09
that the glorious invitation of eternal life is given, and people just refuse it.
29:10-29:12
Father, that's why I want to pray for this church.
29:13-29:15
Those who would call this church their church.
29:16-29:28
Father, I lift these people up to You, and ask Father that You would equip them to be able to share Your story, the whole story, with the lost in their lives.
29:29-29:36
Father, I also pray again that You would give these people eyes to see how You're working.
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Because sometimes, God, we want to share the gospel with them and baptize them an hour later.
29:43-29:47
It's a process, an urgent process, but it's a process.
29:48-30:01
So God, I just ask that we would rest in Your sovereignty and have the wisdom and discernment to see how you're using us to be sons and daughters of light in a dark world.
30:01-30:02
Thank you, Father.
30:03-30:08
Thank you for the testimonies we're going to be hearing of the lost people that you're going to be saving.
30:09-30:11
We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read John 12:27-36

What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
Jesus said in John 12:31, “Now is the judgment of this world…” What exactly does that mean? How is the cross “judgment of this world”?
Let's get practical. Think of those you want to reach with the Gospel, and be specific on these answers:
- How can you show someone that they don't understand God's Word like they think they do (John 12:34)?
- How can you help someone see their true condition (John 12:35)?
- How can you help someone have a sense of urgency (John 12:36)?

Breakout
Pray for someone, by name, that you know who needs to know Jesus. Pray for one another to have the opportunity to minister the Gospel to that person.

Because Jesus Was Raised...We Live in His Grace.

Introduction:

Witnesses to the Resurrection (1 Cor 15:1-11):

Three Realizations of Those Who Live in His Grace:

Knowing Jesus - Knowing His Example

Introduction:

The Humility Assessment (John 13:1-20):

➡ 3 Reasons to Do the Dirty Jobs (John 13:16-20):

Knowing Jesus - Knowing His Authority

Introduction:

Four Things Jesus Taught That You Absolutely Have to Get Right (John 12:44-50):

Knowing Jesus - Knowing His Fulfillment

Introduction:

3 Reasons You Have to Receive Jesus Today (John 12:36-43):

Why Would God Harden a Person's Heart?

Knowing Jesus - Knowing His Purpose

Introduction:

Three Things Jesus Accomplished on the Cross that Glorify God (John 12:27-36):

What Keeps People From Believing? (John 12:34-36):

Upcoming Small Group Questions CLICK HERE

How much of the Bible have we covered since 2011?

Introduction:

Witnesses to the Resurrection (1 Cor 15:1-11):

Three Realizations of Those Who Live in His Grace:

Audio Transcript

Introduction:

The Humility Assessment (John 13:1-20):

➡ 3 Reasons to Do the Dirty Jobs (John 13:16-20):

Audio Transcript

Introduction:

Four Things Jesus Taught That You Absolutely Have to Get Right (John 12:44-50):

Audio Transcript

Introduction:

3 Reasons You Have to Receive Jesus Today (John 12:36-43):

Why Would God Harden a Person's Heart?

Audio Transcript

Introduction:

Three Things Jesus Accomplished on the Cross that Glorify God (John 12:27-36):

What Keeps People From Believing? (John 12:34-36):

Audio Transcript